


After the Curtains Have Closed

by Ideal_Flower



Category: Homeland
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-07-19
Updated: 2017-01-29
Packaged: 2018-07-25 12:06:36
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 26
Words: 53,656
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7532134
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ideal_Flower/pseuds/Ideal_Flower
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>CH 26: NEW. He had never met the woman. Hadn’t seen any of her interrogation tapes or numerous wire recordings, but he was already drawn to her in a way that gave him a sickly feeling in the front of his mouth. And when she turned her head quickly, her eyes sharp as she peered through her own window - directly into his scope, despite the hundred meter distance between them - he was forced to lower it, unable to hold her unknowing gaze. CarriexQuinn. AU relationship, within all official lines. Mature themes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. New Car Smell

**New Car Smell**

She was remarkably easy to watch, for an intelligence officer. She had left the blinds open, lights on, and from the front seat of his nondescript car, he could trace her path through her house. Kitchen, living, up the stairs, front room (bedroom), side hall, down the stairs, living. He didn’t even need his scope, though he used it anyway. He had seen pictures of her - Estes had given him a considerably thick file just an hour before. Hospital records, psychiatric assessments, pharmacy receipts, even. There were the results of her physicals, polygraph tests, face shots, body shots, more information that he had ever needed to know about any target. And she wasn’t the target. Not really, not yet anyway.

He had a whole other folder for that one.

He twisted the end of the scope slightly, and Carrie’s magnified profile sharpened in response. Though he liked to think he had lost his moral compass somewhere around the age of 14, his throat ticked uncomfortably as he followed her hand up to her ear, fingers bringing her hair across the nape of her neck to expose her throat, that rounded bump of her chest. Oddly, he considered what her skin felt like. Smooth. Like her hair. 

Quinn frowned at this train of thought, watching as she hunched over her laptop, sitting precariously among scattered take-out containers on her living room table. He had never met the woman. Hadn’t seen any of her interrogation tapes or numerous wire recordings, but he was already drawn to her in a way that gave him a sickly feeling in the front of his mouth. And when she turned her head quickly, her eyes sharp as she peered through her own window - directly into his scope, despite the hundred meter distance between them - he was forced to lower it, unable to hold her unknowing gaze.

…

When they actually met, he made sure to speak first. 

“So, who are these guys?” He rounded the table as she entered their observation room.

It was hard not to smile at her rag-tag team, but the upturn of his mouth might’ve given him away. He had read their names on a sheet: Max, Virgil. Brothers, though they didn’t look it as he glanced from them to Carrie. She took none of his carefully-constructed introduction. Make himself known, his position, his history, that he knew all her games and had no patience for them. He would be confident, a little crude, honing the personality he had created for the situation. He would unabashedly ask her about Brody, offer some pitiful half-truth of his life in return, making him likeable, despite the cockiness. 

She was immediately skeptical. 

“Uh, the same guys who’ve already watched Brody for 300 hours.” She stood like a man, hands defiantly in pockets, weight set to one side, suspicious of a guy she had never met, an analyst she had never even heard of. He was taller than her by maybe half a foot, and she hated the cock-sure look he was giving her. This was her operation, and he was smirking at her like he knew exactly why the red flare of anger was back behind her eyeballs. 

He didn’t know her.

_I like your work._

She watched his lips move, unsure if he hadn’t bothered to shave that morning or if that was all the beard he could grow. Otherwise, he seemed clean-cut enough, slim under his strategically wrinkled shirt, hair mussed to ensure he didn’t seem square, blue eyes and dark brows. His girlfriend probably cut herself on those cheekbones. He would be good looking if he hadn’t just hijacked her operation - she tried to play nice.

“Actually, it was the same.” 

“The same?” 

God, she tried not to let her irritation show, so she shrugged and gave him as best a sheepish grin as she could. Were her teeth in the right spot? “Same plan, so…” She smiled between him and Saul. 

“So I’m only half a moron.” 

She gave a small tiff at that, almost a real laugh. At least he was self-aware. She watched him as he turned back through the computer row, walking on the balls of his feet as if he was unsure about the weight of his body, like his legs were suddenly too long. He didn’t have to tell her what the game plan was, she knew what it was, because it was her plan, after all. She would sic Virgil on him later.


	2. Q & A

**Q &A**

God damn her. 

It was all an act, wasn’t it. She had a zoetrope of stories: pretty blonde, perfectly sane medicated manic depressive, loving and adoring woman, cunning officer, crazy escapee, desperate lover. His gut clenched at the memory of her soft-talking Brody, how easy it came to her, how difficult it suddenly seemed to separate her from her guise. He knew she was good, but when he had listened to her stroke Brody into confessing, it dawned on him that she was better. He had set her up, and she had hit it out of the ballpark with all the bases loaded. 

“Are you fucking insane?” His back was turned as he made himself a poor excuse for a cup of coffee, but he had heard her approach, that click of her gait that he had already committed to memory. It made the hair rise on the backs of his arms. “Were you _trying_ to pull that good cop-bad cop shit?”

“It worked, didn’t it?” His voice was cool, forcibly so, and he couldn’t quite turn to face her yet. It hadn’t been his original intention to skewer Brody’s palm, just harass him a little, maybe stab the table. But then he had felt true rage at Brody’s unrelenting face, and his knife had gone half a foot too far forward, that satisfying crunch of bone and coppery smell of blood. His last psych-eval had recommended the anger therapy he would never undergo, because even if he had no pride, he had no patience, not for the line-up of doctors and shrinks. 

“Hey! Would you listen to me-” Carrie’s tone was too sharp, and with a shock, he felt her palm grab his elbow. And so his reaction became his second mistake of the night: little more than instinct and reflex, after nearly 15 years of training. It’s only when he had her pinned against the kitchenette wall, offending hand tucked into her chest after being spun violently away from his body, that he felt it. Her breath was loud, fast, and her back quivered along the top of his bicep, where he had wrapped his arm around her, his dominant hand pinning her hand to her chest, and her chest pressing his hand to the wall. 

Her hair smelled tropical, like coconut or pineapple, like what Julia used to store in his stand-up shower. Up this close, he could see the artificial highlights, the duller blonde beneath, the light freckling along her neck, soft crows’ feet at her temples as her cheek pressed against the cold wall, eyes squeezed shut. It was easy to overpower her, and would only be slightly more difficult to keep her there, and that thought was strangely appealing. To press her into him, the two of them barely visible in the dark kitchen, her ass into his crotch, fingers intertwined so tightly he could feel her heart pounding beneath them. 

He felt her weight shift slightly, her muscles tensing to spring back, so he let her go before she could take her defence. She didn’t seem frightened when she straightened up, not even angry, just suspicious. He didn’t apologize, or try and spin an excuse, and so she spoke first. 

“Six years on the floor at Langley, huh?” she asked dryly, pulling her blazer straight on her shoulders. He couldn’t trust himself to speak, so he left, disappearing from the room, his forgotten coffee still on the counter.


	3. A Gettysburg Address

**A Gettysburg Address**

Quinn loved the tension in the room. God, it was thick, so thick he could feel it on his skin, that heaviness between his ears, his heart beat fast and strong in his ribs. Brody looked seriously uncomfortable, nervous, his eyes darting around the room, his feet rocking his body slightly back and forth on his chair. It made his dislike for the man grow stronger, and he was secretly smug that he had gone off on him yesterday, driving the knife through his hand. He hated the way Brody kept looking back at Carrie as she rearranged their strategy board, doting on her, expecting her to be the mediator between them. 

“A lot of things about this arrangement are far from ideal.” Quinn tried to keep the malice from his voice, but it still came through, heavy with distrust. Brody’s head bobbled in response as Carrie gave him an exasperated look, aware of the tension, but not completely understanding why it existed. He wasn’t exactly sure either, but he didn’t trust Brody to take a piss without supervision, let alone participate in an undercover operation without stabbing them in the back. 

Both of them looked to Carrie, Brody for guidance, Quinn for clarity. He didn’t trust Carrie either, not after she had blown their op and had a full-on meltdown in Brody’s hotel room. Her eyes raised to his and he felt his resolution waver, just a quiver, at her gaze. That annoying tug in his gut was back, and he didn’t like it. He didn’t keep his eyes on her, instead looking back to Brody, waiting for him to be of some use, do something else instead of sit there like a petulant child kept in at recess. 

He could be patient. He could stand there with his arms at his side and glare at Brody with a warped sense of amusement all day if he had to. Brody was clearly starting to panic a little, trying to weasel his way out of the room, claiming he had to get going: a busy Congressman off to do great and important things. His spit turned sour in his mouth. 

And then Brody revealed that the Gettysburg tailor was dead, and Quinn felt that familiar rage. He wanted to grab Brody around his throat, smash his forehead into the concrete floor and watch his blood pool around Carrie’s heels. Then he would move his fucking cocksure mugshot resolutely to the DEAD board and revel in the most satisfaction he had felt all week. But Carrie was right next to him, looking between them in concern, as Quinn’s voice started to raise, his exasperation at this shit-show through the roof.

Brody did not back down at Quinn’s anger, instead yelling back, his eyes bulging in his head, throat constricted by his starched collar, having the gall to be pissed that he wasn’t told every detail of the operation. Quinn could barely take it anymore, the anger thick and hot in his throat, in his stomach, down in his scrotum. 

“The deal is full fucking disclosure, not pick and choose what you say!” His tongue was thick with the words, his hands shoved into his front pockets to keep them away from Brody’s neck, and his face and jaw shook with the effort. Carrie, somehow, despite being five seconds away from witnessing first degree murder, looked calmly at Brody, eyebrows patiently raised.

“Wait here.” 

Quinn barely glanced at her, still glaring at Brody’s sweating face, but when she took a step between them, he felt the air move around, that light smell of her hair as it swished around her shoulders. And then she touched the inside of his elbow, so lightly, the events of yesterday clearly still at the forefront of her mind. But it instantly deflated him, and he quickly glanced at her as she walked away, then back at Brody, keeping his gaze for as long as he could stomach as he followed Carrie, into the darkened hall at the other end of the room. 

She gave him a disapproving look and he was surprised to find that he instantly felt the urge to explain himself. “That guy is a pathological liar!” he protested in a harsh whisper, pointing his finger for emphasis as she pulled the door close.

“No,” Carrie sighed. “It’s my fault, I never pressed him in the debrief-“

“Yeah, and I wonder why that was,” he retorted, exhaling angrily through his nose. Carrie frowned at him, hands on hips. He pointedly kept his eyes off her chest, where her jacket had pulled apart to reveal the slight curve of her breast. He thought of Brody’s hands in her hair, his mouth on her neck, and couldn’t help but suddenly picture her unabashedly naked. 

“What’s that supposed to mean?” she replied, as if genuinely hurt at his accusation. Quinn didn’t buy it for one second, that look of professional disappointment on her face, that ridiculous curve of her mouth. He wished she’d touch him again, just a light graze, and then he felt stupid, which made his anger flicker up again. The nerve of this fucking woman. 

“I don’t know, Carrie. In the interrogation room, you said you wanted him to leave his wife and run away with you?!” He glared at her incredulously, unbelievable that he even had to say it, quickly shoving his hands in his pockets again to keep them from acting out irrationally. 

“And you put a knife through his hand.”

Okay, fair enough. He backed off a bit, letting her lecture him for his judgement. She spoke to him like she was handling him, and maybe she was. Strangely, it didn’t bother him. He looked at her mouth as her lips moved with her speech, and although he heard her words, he didn’t reply until the silence went on a little too long. She gave him that look of hers, wide eyes, head cocked to one side, and he found himself giving in. Maybe he was being complacent, but maybe she had a point. He wished the door was closed, that Brody was gone, that they were alone. 

Why the fuck did he want that.

“I’ll put a forensics team together and take them to Gettysburg,” he managed finally, hoping he sounded pensive enough after his silence. 

Carrie nodded. “Thank you.” She peered back out into the room and Quinn felt an unwelcome pang of regret as she looked about to leave. When she paused, he glanced around the door corner to see what had caused her hesitation. Brody sat with his head in his hands, looking genuinely distraught. Quinn almost felt sorry for him, except Brody was a damn good actor. He had proven that time and time again, although Carrie never seemed to get it. 

She stepped into the hall again, to plead her case for putting Brody back in with Roya Hammad. For fuck’s sakes, would she let it go. His hand had somehow come to the wall beside his head, his arm long, his body turned toward her. There was a fleeting image of his 11-year-old self, kissing Miranda-the-girl-next-door for the first time, his arm bent in that same position. He chewed on his lip, the inside of his cheek, glad for the little prick of pain through his gums.

He gave in as he watched Brody, almost afraid to look back at her earnest face. But he had to. “Fine, your call,” he sighed. Let her have this one. “But Carrie…”

She rolled her eyes. “Don’t trust him.” She clucked her teeth and tongue together and that sound sent a strange vibration through his gut. “Yeah, you said.” She gave him one last exasperated look before she left the hall. He felt disappointed for some reason as he followed, his hand on the door handle. She was already a few feet in front of him, heading back to Brody.

“Carrie.” His voice was clear, strong, though it surprised him, as if he had never intended to speak, let alone speak her name. She glanced back, then paused, as if something on his face had given him away. Brody had looked up, his small eyes following as Carrie turned to come closer to Quinn. Her off-green eyes were curious, but guarded, as he let her back into the hall, this time stepping farther from the door crack, back into the darkness he was so accustomed to. 

“What?” she asked impatiently, hands on her hips.

“Look.” Quinn licked his lips, eyes glancing over the hall, searching for hidden movement, cameras, Virgil lurking in a corner. “Yesterday, I-“

“Forget it,” Carrie interrupted, embarrassed for him, even though he wasn’t embarrassed at all. She drew her fingers through her hair and he followed the movement with still eyes, watching the pulse in her throat. He seemed constantly drawn to that line of her jugular, where it dipped down to her clavicle. “It was a long day. You were on edge.”

“Well, I apologize.” He looked down to where their feet were separate, as he stepped forward, her body heat seeming to grow warmer. She was looking up at him in confusion, real or fake, he couldn’t tell, and he was struck with a sensation that couldn’t be anything but lust. She was certifiable, probably fucking a terrorist, Saul’s favourite pet, but he felt himself drawn to her in a way he hated. A weakness. She was going to be a weakness. 

She was silent as he lifted his fingers, back to where he had grabbed her wrist the night before, pinned her against the kitchenette wall. “What are you…” she trailed off as he circled his hand over her slender forearm, drawing his palm up to her elbow. Her mouth opened in surprise, but her eyes didn’t leave his. He took another step and this brought them so close together, his stomach touched her ribs, their height difference suddenly bigger. He was drawing himself up, towering over her, and he could smell her shampoo again, the coffee she had drank instead of lunch, the ketones on her breath from the lithium. Holding her gaze was thrilling, and his hand had circled her elbow, holding the bone tightly, tucking it into her side. He could feel the fast beat of her heart through her arm. 

But when she stepped away, she broke their contact easily, as if it never meant anything. Of course it didn’t mean anything. Quinn swallowed, but didn’t look away from her as she shook her head tightly, lips closing. She pushed the door open and was gone before he had even realized she was leaving, and the air was cool again, damp.


	4. The Clearing

**The Clearing**

It felt a lot like guilt. Carrie paced outside Peter Quinn’s hospital room, rubbing her temples, her heels clicking loudly on the plastic tile. The operation had gone full on cluster-fuck, and he had been caught in its crossfire. The fact he wasn’t dead in Gettysburg was nearly unbelievable, and poor Galvez was only half-alive in the room next door. 

Fuck her. 

She couldn’t figure him out. One minute he was calling her bluff, accusing her of being too trusting of Brody, claiming she wasn’t using her best judgement, and the next he was flying off the handle, slamming her into walls, touching her in the way that both thrilled and irritated the hell out of her. Was he playing her? Seeing how easy it was to get into her bed? Quinn was Estes’ guy, after all, maybe he would report just how easy a lay she was in a neat little memo for the Director’s perusal. 

Her cell rang loudly in her back pocket and she was too distracted to glance at the screen before answering. “Mathison.” Her voice was clipped, and she tried to silently clear her throat without sending it through the line.

“What the hell are you doing out there, Carrie?” Quinn’s voice was annoyed on the other end. “Either come in and take pity on me, or go the fuck away.” 

“You’re crabby,” she replied, trying to make the smart remark light, but he just sighed in response. 

“Quit the click-clack,” he said and the line went dead. The fucker hung up on her. She scowled at her phone before walking over to his closed hospital door, reaching out for the handle. She didn’t even knock before entering, making sure to stomp loudly across the threshold just to piss him off, her heels loudly smacking on the linoleum. His eyes were closed, his body covered with a hospital gown and standard-issue sheets, tubes connected to his hands, and a whole pile of pillows supporting his back and arms. But his lips twitched as if trying to contain a smile. A light flutter of relief went through her, to see that he was still mostly the same. 

Mostly the same? She didn’t know the man. 

She paced in his room instead, as they talked through the case. Quinn seemed to want to talk about it, and it felt good to discuss it with him: another voice to help her plan their next move. He had that going for him at least, a good colleague - he was smart and fast, and didn’t take shit - even hers. When he asked about Galvez, she winced, and he had the good grace to look upset. She watched him closely as he rubbed his palm over his eyebrows, working through that latest news. 

She didn’t approve when he tried to get out of the bed, but she stood back and watched him slowly push his legs off the side, standing shakily and dragging his feet to the cabinet in the corner. She tried not to look, but she could see bare flesh along the back of the hospital gown. His ass was pale, compared to his legs and back. Like most men, but for some reason it didn’t suit him. And she didn’t expect him to boldly tear the gown off, especially not when the last few words out of her mouth were about Saul. 

“Quinn!”

Jesus. She felt her cheeks flush as she looked away, turning on her heel, trying not to want to look back. 

“Right in front of me?” she complained loudly, holding her hands out as if she had been caught looking beforehand. She practically felt him turn, his eyes on her and then she had to. She looked over her shoulder, and their eyes caught. His eyebrows lifted into his forehead and he seemed mostly amused. 

“Like _you’ve_ never seen a dick before.” 

She spun her head back to the wall, rolling her eyes, unable to think of a smart enough comeback. She hadn’t seen him, not really. Just out of her peripheral. She realized he was pointedly referring to her brief affair with Brody, although they both knew there had been dozens of other men. Her mind went back to Brody, that tug at her heart, so closely associated with mania she could no longer tell the difference. Did she love Brody, or did he just feed into her psychosomaticism. She had no idea, but she felt high with him - as high as her meds would allow her - and she had begun to crave it. To fly with him, around him, that adrenaline and dopamine pushing her forward, into things her dose normally prevented. The restraint of 1800 mg of lithium was no small feat. 

“You can look now, Mother Teresa.” Quinn’s dry voice interrupted her thoughts, and so she turned, rolling her eyes again at his remark, watching as he fumbled with the buttons on the front of his shirt. She sighed, feeling bad for him - dull from the medication, and sharp from the pain. 

“Jesus. C’mere.” She crossed the room, holding out her hands as she went and he sighed, looking mildly exasperated as he raised his gaze to the ceiling, letting his arms limply hang at his hips. She grabbed the sides of his wrinkled blue shirt, giving them a light tug as she started at his chest. “You’re so unprofessional,” she muttered, her fingers accidentally grazing his chest as they shook - her hands never shook. Not anymore. He gave a dire scoff, and she suddenly felt very nervous, being this close, her hands on his clothes. 

“What’d you call this, Carrie?” Quinn replied, voice nearly inaudible it was so soft. “Just another day on the job?” His right hand raised, circling hers, and goosebumps erupted down her spine. When Quinn laid his long, cool hands on her, her mind grew clear, honest, if not suspicious. His dark blue eyes saw through her, it seemed. Every time Brody touched her, she thought her knees would give in and she’d fall to the floor, drown in the very depths of the worst parts of her illness. And the worst parts were also the addictive parts, simultaneously the best parts.

She was nearly finished with Quinn’s shirt when he leaned in, his travelling hand slipping around her shoulders, his cheek touching hers. She stilled, her eyes closing as her mouth opened, breathing in the harsh antiseptic, the faint scent of blood and bandage. What was he doing? Better yet, why was she letting him do it. He was freshly wounded, it’s not as if anything could happen. He was in charge of Brody’s investigation. Brody. But the man in front of her was not Brody - Quinn was dark, heavy, suffocating, unwavering. 

Quinn didn’t kiss her. When he pulled back, she realized she had been expecting it. She wasn’t disappointed. He gave her a quick glance as he gingerly reached for his jacket and shoes. “Now help me get the fuck outta here,” he said, plainly, strategically, as if they hadn’t just been in some sort of strange embrace two seconds before.


	5. I'll Fly Away

**I’ll Fly Away**

He nearly gave himself an aneurysm. He didn’t want to think about it, even though that’s all he possibly could. He’d never be able to forget the sounds out of her mouth, the sounds of Brody nailing her against some wall, the rattling of that cheap motel desk. Neither of them fucking bought it. Not him. Not Saul.

Sure, the official story would be Carrie reeling an asset back into the game, but she was really just living out her own fantasies. Fucking unbelievable. She was further off the deep end than he thought. Because he wasn’t jealous. He didn’t imagine Carrie’s arms around his own neck, her legs around his own thin waist, tongue in his ear, nails in his back.

Quinn exhaled painfully, turning in the control room, trying not to look at the computer screen - even though it was only an audio feed - and a clearly uncomfortable Saul beside it. The wound in his abdomen throbbed. He licked his lips again, blinking once, twice, a hundred times, trying to erase Carrie and Brody from the back of his throat, the bottom of his groin, that spot between his shoulder blades. She was orgasming, that much was obvious, and it was no act. She was delusional - absolutely delusional. 

He had thought maybe there was a spark between them, a flurry of glances, those light touches she liked placing on his arms and back as they stepped around each other in the hallway, the hospital, the kitchenette, the operations room. But she was clearly a fucking tease, in 128 kbps. 

He was breathing too loudly. 

He had told Carrie to empower Brody. 

This wasn’t exactly what he meant.

Saul looked traumatized, rubbing his palm into his forehead like he wanted to haul his brain out of his skull and throw it through the window. 

Jesus fucking Christ, it kept going. She kept going in that loud, breathy trio of groans. Quinn flexed his palms, turning fists into spread fingers, pacing beside Saul, trying to quell the anger that was beginning to replace the arousal in the pit of his stomach. He’d have her head on a platter in five seconds flat. He should’ve known better than to trust her crazy ass with the marine that she was so, inexplicably, in love with. 

He exhaled loudly at that thought, glancing impatiently between the computer and Saul. He ran his tongue over his teeth, waiting for someone - anyone - beside him to say it. Because if he said it, he was going to smash Saul’s chair through the audio feed, then obliterate the computer into a million tiny pieces. But nobody said a god damn thing.

“How far is the takedown team?” he asked instead, turning to the support technician behind them. 

“Don’t do it,” Saul said, remarkably calm considering how mother fucking FUBAR the operation had gone. 

Quinn turned on his heel, pacing angrily again, feeling the sheen of sweat forming on his forehead. “Estes told us to shut this down.” 

“It is premature,” Saul argued. 

Fucking hell, it was premature. He’d show fucking Brody what was premature. 

“Or maybe we should have done this weeks ago,” Quinn spat, walking close to Saul again, forcing him to look up from the shade of his embarrassed hand. Quinn glared as Saul tried to reason, tried to argue for Carrie’s sake that she was turning it around, giving them access to the only weak point in the cell. 

“Turning it around? Is _that_ what you think is going on there, _really_?” He reached forward and jerked up the volume so Carrie’s best pornstar impression echoed in the room. “Turning it around?” he asked Saul again, spite and sarcasm so thick in his voice it nearly jumped onto the table. “Really?” 

“Turn it off,” Saul said, glancing up again, seemingly unable to handle Carrie’s orgasm at that decibel. Quinn, so mad he was practically neurotic, turned it up further. Carrie would be burned into his brain until they all died their miserable fucking deaths. 

“No, tell me, really. I’d like your expert opinion. Is that somebody turning something around, or is that a stage-five _delusional_ getting laid?!” 

Saul was adamant. “I’m telling you, she can _fix_ this.” And then he turned it off, but Quinn’s ears still rung with it. He wanted a cigarette. Saul offered him gum instead.

…

They watched as their GPS feed died abruptly. Quinn frowned, looking around at the support techs, as if he even had to ask. “Why did we lose audio?” he asked impatiently, irritated, and the day had only just begun. “Tighten up the follow vehicles now. We cannot afford to lose them. Keep line of sight, and get me two more vehicles in pursuit.” He tapped the back of Tech1’s monitor, then leaned back on the desk, looking over at Carrie, who was looking around as if stunned. “Carrie?” His voice was expectant, but clear, considering how yesterday had gone. 

He had interrupted what looked like the standard Saul lecture just a few moments ago. Now, maybe he wasn’t sure. Was she planning something? Did she know something they didn’t?

“She knows,” Carrie said, calmly, but impatiently, looking around the floor - that way she always did when about to go off-book and make his life difficult. How did he even know that? How had he picked up on her mannerisms so fast, so easily. Oh, right, he spent his days looking at her, his nights jacking off to her, and every waking second grinding his molars at whatever shit-show she got on with. 

Quinn raised his eyebrows, instead of closing the distance between them and giving her a swift, solid shake. He shrugged, she was probably right on that one. “Maybe… maybe not. We’ll see.” He said it partly because he knew she’d hate it. Not that she’d give it - him - a second thought. Not with Brody fresh inside her, and not with him suddenly on the lam with Roya. 

She couldn’t keep his gaze - her eyes flickering between monitors, the floor, the wall, before finally back at him. Of course she knew he’d listened. It was his operation. He listened to every god damn second of it, even after Saul turned it off. Earlier that morning the guys on the floor had circulated the tape around, and he’d heard it no less than 12 times. A dozen times he simultaneously couldn’t decide between rage and embarrassment, agitation and arousal. Carrie’s frantic pants were playing on a loop in his brain. 

Carrie grabbed her bag, glancing back at Quinn briefly, her mind spinning out in a hundred directions. Had she fucked it up? Had Roya made her position, her plan? Did Brody tell her, make a sign, throw up a smoke signal? Did he fuck her in that motel last night because Carrie wanted him to, or because Roya told him to. It had been good, back in Brody’s arms, it had felt right. Her brain whispered in her ear, sending a dizziness down her spine - that doubt, anxiety, and pure unadulturated thrill she got when she was with him, or even thought about him. Brody was her responsibility. She had to help him.

“I’ll go in the follow car with Max and Virgil.” Carrie slung her bag across her chest, finally meeting Quinn’s gaze. His face showed no emotion except mild impatience. Was he wearing the same shirt as yesterday? Probably. Maybe not. She didn’t care. She didn’t care. Her mission was Brody.

“Alright,” he said after a beat, barely having to think. At least they were both on the same page: acquire Brody back at all costs, “but, Carrie, just promise me - stay the fuck back, okay?” And then he looked at her with some sort of glance that nearly stopped her. His tone was softer than before, almost pleading, but Quinn would never plead. He’d probably throw her in the basement lockup before letting her chase down Brody, if he didn’t want her there. He trusted her. 

_Don’t you trust yourself._

She finally managed a nod, turning to go. Quinn stared after her, trying not to watch, forcing himself to look back at the monitor, muttering under his breath. He lived for this shitty operation, and getting Carrie out of the room meant one less distraction. Saul was looking at them, trying to be covert, but failing pretty miserably for a senior analyst. 

“You really think that’s a good idea?” he asked as Quinn pulled a chair out, going to sit down by the main screen.

“Do I really think _what’s_ a good idea?” Quinn replied, keeping the tone of his voice dull, bored, as if he’d been at the helm of a thousand more brutal missions - because he had. Saul didn’t bite, just raised his eyebrows and gave his head a light shake, spinning in his chair to avoid Quinn’s exasperated sigh, the inevitable stare-down.

Fuck it.

Quinn pushed himself out of the chair, trying not to be obvious about it, keeping the chair from spiralling across the floor. Because he really just wanted to kick it somewhere in the general direction of Tech4’s monitor. The stitches in his side ached with every step, and he had that reoccurring, yet fleeting, thought of wishing he were somewhere else. A nap on the beach, a coffee in a corner diner, a better excuse for a bed in his miserable apartment. He’d buy some sheets, maybe. 

But that would never happen. 

“Carrie…” When had he started saying her name like that, low and impatient, dragging out the second syllable. He liked how it felt on his tongue.

She was striding quickly in the opposite direction, already out the door into the main hallway, arms swinging at her sides, not stopping, just glancing over her shoulder at him. He tried not to wince when his quick steps tore at his stomach, and although his face might have been stone, his gait faltered more than he’d liked. Carrie didn’t stop, but she did slow down, but only a little.

“What are you doing?” she asked in annoyance, turning the corner, and disappearing into the hallway beyond. There was an unexpected rise of panic in the back of his throat until he too, came around the corner, once again seeing her flash of blonde hair. His hand had come down to clutch at his side, the wound thickened with bandage, and that reminder of weakness left his tongue bitter around the whiskey he had for breakfast. 

She had paused on the other side of the corner, staring at him expectantly, almost wide-eyed, her eyebrows raised. “What is it?” she pressed, glancing around him, as if expecting someone else. 

Quinn blinked, suddenly unsure why he had followed her. Was it to call her back? Should he heed Saul’s warning, because all of them - every single analyst that had listened to Brody fuck her - knew that she was far too involved. He opened his mouth to say it, but Carrie cut him off at the chase, easily predicting what was already at his lips.

“You have to let me do this.” Her hair had pooled all on one side of her neck, and he watched the morning light fade around it, glanced at her mouth, saw the light rash along her throat and cheek, where Brody’s unshaven face had run along her pale skin. And that loop played immediately, deafening between his ears: the sounds she made with her legs up over Brody’s shoulders. Anything he might have done, been about to do, came to an abrupt halt as his blood cooled and his stomach nearly bottomed out. He blinked quickly, bringing his racing, mutinous heart back to a steady beat, letting the anger slip down the back of his skull for another time. 

She was oblivious, giving him that look again: determined, desperate, almost manic. “Quinn! I have to go-“

He grabbed her wrist suddenly, and both of them seemed surprised at the movement. She looked down at his forefinger and thumb, easily circling her thin arm. “Promise me, you gotta quit if they catch on.” Shit, he hadn’t intended for his voice to come out saying those words. He had no right to speak like that, not to anyone, especially not to this bull-headed woman. 

Carrie swallowed, her eyes searching him, but her lips pressed in a thin line as she tried to tug her hand free from his grip. “I can’t -“ She set herself, as if preparing to bolt, glancing over her shoulder again before back at him. They stared at each other for too long, each unwilling to retreat, and then her free hand lifted to their joined fingers, covering the wide back of his palm. God, her skin was smooth, and so he let her gently pry their connection apart. His ribs clenched as she squeezed his fingers, as if to offer reassurance, despite her unreassuring words. “I won’t do that,” she finished. 

Quinn exhaled the breath he had been holding. “God dammit, Carrie. Would you at least _try_ to lie to me?!” He moved to pull back his hands, but she was still holding on, the twitch gone from her forehead, her eyes clear once again, unclouded by her often-poor judgement. 

“I won’t do that either.” Her voice was soft, pointed, and with one last squeeze of his palm, she let go and left the hall, once again marching down its length, hands swinging, hips swinging. He had a feeling he was going to regret letting her leave.


	6. Two Hats

**Two Hats**

“Hey.” 

Quinn felt a light nudge on his shoulder and he blinked to wipe the LED screen from his eyeballs, glancing over at the paper coffee cup held out to him. He liked his coffee black, and Carrie knew it, but had either forgotten - unlikely - or didn’t care - more likely. He lifted a hand and took what was probably one cream, two sugar anyway, tilting it up in thanks.

“You looked like you needed it,” she said, falling into the chair next to him. He scrubbed his palm over his face and chin, the backlit monitors in front of him bright in the dark room. It was just over two hours into his shift, and not a single remarkable thing had happened, except maybe Max speaking a whole three sentences. Max and Virgil had been trading what they must have assumed were nondescript glances all afternoon, and it sent the hair on the back of his neck up. They were planning something, he just wasn’t sure what. That bothered him more than Carrie’s constant hovering, her nervous pacing behind his chair, both of them watching the screens, even though it was nowhere near the doom shift. 

He had kept himself mostly indifferent the past day, still pissed at her, at himself. And then to watch them - her and Brody - on the closed circuit stream, sent twisting jabs of anxiety through his gut, anger behind his teeth, something that was probably embarrassment in his chest. At least Saul understood him, that utter distrust in that fucking marine. Quinn hated that Carrie couldn’t see it: that Brody was 99% duping them, and most of all her. He hated the way she looked at Brody, and he at her. Like they were two teenagers in a Shakespearean tragedy, unable to be together in the light of day. 

It was getting closer. It was only a matter of time before Nazir was down and it was his turn. The thought of placing a bullet in Brody’s skull gave him a very strong buzz in his temples and his fingers drummed on the surface of the table, the edge of the paper cup. He took a long drink of the coffee, let it burn the flat of his tongue and all the way down his throat. He didn’t have much of a sense of taste anymore, not since spending three days without water in the Arabian Desert in 08. When Rob and Kroger had finally shown up, sand had encrusted his lips and teeth, had left his tongue raw with dehydration. 

“-Quinn?”

Shit, Carrie was asking him something. He took another drink to feign distraction, and set the cup down on the table. Virgil was watching them from his seat near the back of the room. Quinn wished he’d piss off somewhere else, leave him to his watch and to definitely not think about Carrie and Brody, or red blood in dusty sand. Max had already disappeared 30 minutes ago, so it was one down, one to go. Someone had broken into his apartment earlier that morning, and whoever it was knew what they were doing - if he hadn’t installed that motion sensor in his kitchen AC socket, he wouldn’t have been the wiser. But he knew who it was. He just didn’t know if it was Saul or Carrie behind the command. 

“Uh, no, nothing yet,” he replied, recalling Carrie’s question, trying to cover for his prolonged pause. He briefly thought of her crying over Brody’s dead body, and his trigger finger no longer twitched. A wave of light nausea came over him, and he quickly drained the rest of his coffee. 

“Wow, guess I was right,” Carrie said, laughing lightly, referring to his quick caffeine intake. 

He glanced over at her, hoping his face was carefully neutral, that she couldn’t see through him the way she saw through almost everyone else. He wanted to yell at her, to take her shoulders and shake, watch her head bobble on her thin neck. “You’re in a good mood,” he remarked instead, scratching at the nape of his neck with a pen. 

Carrie shrugged, her eyes bright as she looked at him, reaching a hand up to tuck her hair behind an ear, allowing his eyes to travel along the length of her jaw. “I feel like we’re close… really close to Nazir.” She nodded, mostly to herself, then gave him a half-smile, like they held a secret that no one else knew. She was thinking of Brody, he could tell. Of that utopic life she had planned out for them: 2.3 kids, picket fence, PTA meetings, and soccer practices. How had someone so intelligent become so completely oblivious. 

“I’m glad _you_ think so,” Quinn sighed. He was already tired of this operation, of Carrie murking around his emotions. He didn’t like his mission skewed by her voice grinding in his ears, her lips behind his eyelids. He didn’t want to see her face when she saw Brody dead, when she realized who killed him. He was ready to finish the job, and get the hell out of D.C., away from her. If today went well, he would be on a plane by midnight, onto the next mission. 

She was silent for a few minutes, watching the monitor array. He worried the inside of his bottom lip with his teeth, thinking about how there was barely two inches between her shirt sleeve and his fingers. When she sat up and leaned forward to inspect the screen closer, the material lifted up to reveal a peak of skin below the hem. The muscles in his thighs tightened and he shifted in his seat, drawing his eyes away, swallowing that want back into the pit of his stomach. 

“Carrie, you should go,” he said quietly. She looked at him in surprise, as if he had just suggested she paint herself purple and run away to Burning Man. “Catch a few hours of sleep before the shit hits the fan.”

She smiled, tilting her head. “That’s probably not a bad idea.” She lifted herself from the chair and he caught a whiff of her shampoo again as her hair swished by him. He didn’t know why she did it, but her hand came to his shoulder, her fingers just barely grazing the exposed skin on his chest. The warmth instantly bloomed between his legs and he struggled to keep his face impassive as her hand lingered. He realized she was waiting for a response, so he lifted his palm to hers and threaded their fingers together. She would hate him in the morning, and he would be 3000 miles away, so he let himself feel it, just for a second. Even if she was playing him, softening his reserve in what was supposed to be his operation, he would feel her fingertips against his neck.

Virgil fidgeted somewhere in the background, and their connection was instantly broken. She was suddenly very far away, and he shifted in his seat again to relieve some pressure in the crotch of his pants. He picked up his pen, twiddling it between his fingers, refocusing on the screens stacked in front of him. 

_19:38. No signs of movement._

He scrawled that on the notepad by his elbow, a feeble attempt to get his brain back on the operation and away from Carrie Mathison. His phone vibrated on the desk and he nearly took a double-take at the number. A set of digits that wasn’t programmed into its database, but that he had long ago memorized, and every instance sent his heart jumping higher into his throat, guilt pounding in his jaw.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, I'm planning on banging these out basically as fast as my schedule allows, and some updates will mostly likely include multiple-chapter postings again. This story is stuck in my head, and I need to get it out!


	7. Broken Hearts

**Broken Hearts**

“Repeat,” he told the dispatcher - even though he heard it the first time - pressing his earpiece closer to sharpen the connection.

“We have an MVA near 17th and Park, plates and description matching the vehicle registered to Carrie Mathison.” 

“Shit.” Quinn ran his palm backwards over his head, looking around the room, as if only now realizing that Carrie wasn’t there. He had actually noticed her absense the moment he walked in, looking for her position so he could pretend to be painfully nonchalant all day. “What’s her status? Has she been taken to a hospital?” Virgil looked up from his seat next to the main monitor array, ears picking up on whatever panic Quinn’s voice couldn’t contain. 

“Negative. No one was found at the scene.”

“ _What?!_ ” He was now actively searching for his jacket, wherever he had dropped it an hour ago. “What the fuck does that mean?” 

The dispatcher’s voice was dry, experienced, not wavering at Quinn’s anger. “Sir, Agent Mathison is not at scene. Her whereabouts are unknown. We’re currently contacting the hospital and paramedic rounds.”

“Fuck.” Quinn slammed the headpiece down off his ear onto the table next to Max, who jumped as papers and pens scattered across the surface.

“What’s going on?” Virgil asked immediately, standing, not even looking at the crumpled electronic device that blinked pathetically between them. 

“Carrie’s missing. Where the fuck is Saul?” Quinn did a quick survey of the room, noting that both Saul and Estes were still missing. There was probably only one thing they could be talking about, now that Saul had visited Julia, and sent the Hardy Boys to break into his apartment: him. If it were a different moment, he would be annoyed, but a light panic was starting to set in. Maybe she was only hurt, wandering down a side street with a head injury, but the more likely story was that it wasn’t an accident. 

“He said he had to make a phone call,” Max replied, looking up at him, eyes surprisingly sharp behind his glasses. 

“Like fuck he did.” Quinn gave up on the search for his jacket and headed for the side door.

“Wait, what do you mean she’s missing?” Virgil yelled after him. Quinn ignored it, the pulse throbbing between his ears, momentarily forgetting his mission, focusing only on Carrie’s absence. He ignored the sharp pain in his ribs as he jumped the stairs to the main floor two at a time, hearing distant voices in the corridor above. If Nazir’s side had Carrie, they took her for a reason, and none of them could possibly be good. 

He could feel her touch still on his shoulder, his hand, his throat, his chest, and then down his stomach, into the crotch of his pants. Sometimes he let his mind play tricks on him: fill in the gaps that they hadn’t hit, the reflexes they hadn’t reached yet, the sheets and chairs and kitchen floors. He swore to himself she wasn’t clouding his judgement. He was doing his job: getting Nazir, killing Brody - that was his job. Not fucking his manic, only slightly unhinged, oblivious Second Analyst. Especially because she was infatuated with his prime target. 

“Fuck you, Saul. _Fuck. You._ ” Even though Estes hissed the words, the unforgiving corridor gave Quinn an ear-full. As he came through the doorway, he could see they were arguing: Saul’s back was to him, but his hunched posture was inquisitive, defensive, and Estes was waving a finger in his face. He started to turn, maybe to leave, maybe for a second retort, and Quinn took advantage of the pause.

“Am I interrupting?”

Saul’s head had whipped back at his approproaching footsteps, forehead heavily lined in a frown, eyebrows perched high above his glasses. 

“No,” Estes lied, turning around again at Quinn’s voice, “what’s up?”

Quinn paused in front of them, looking at Saul, because he was the one that mattered. He would find Carrie. “Carrie’s been in an accident. DC police found her car on 17th Street all smashed up - it was broad sided.” He chanced a quick glance at the Director out of politeness before refocusing again on Saul. 

“Is she hurt?” Saul asked quickly, his argument with Estes immediately forgotten. Quinn had a small flicker of relief, of appreciation, however often misguided, of Saul’s protectiveness over Carrie. 

Quinn gave a short shake of his head. “They can’t find her.” 

“What do you mean, they can’t find her?” Estes interrupted, sounding more pissed at his lingering conversation with Saul than the news that Quinn had delivered. Quinn chanced a look over at him, finding himself slightly out of breath from the complete alarm on Saul’s face. If Saul was worried, Carrie was in deep.

“She’s _not there._ ” Quinn couldn’t help the irritation at the Director’s question seep through his voice, and his shoulders involuntarily gave a half-shrug in annoyance. “They’re looking in local hospitals.” He looked back to Saul, wanting reassurance, even though he knew Saul had none to offer, especially to him.

“Get over to 17th Street,” Estes commanded, and Saul glanced around, as if disoriented, before taking off, Estes’ gaze following him. Quinn stood, sensing something coming his way, and waited for him to speak again. They both looked down the hall to Saul’s disappearing form before it came.

“He knows.” Estes gave him a meaningful look, hands on hips, turning back and forth on his heels. Quinn felt a surge of dislike for the man, despite his seniority over him. It wasn’t a surprise that Saul knew - it had only been a matter of time, and all of his snooping over the past few days had indicated as such. He watched Estes pace, clearly more concerned over his own hide than his missing officer. Quinn’s lips pressed together as he kept his mouth shut, unwilling to say anything stupid, anything that might make its way back to Dar Adal. He glanced back at where Saul had exited the corridor, wanting to leave, to help find Carrie, but the Director hadn’t dismissed him yet. 

“Sir-“

Estes ignored him. “You stick to the plan. Got it?”

Quinn nodded, still unsure of whether to trust his mouth, but he let it open anyway. “Yes, Sir.”

Estes turned and left, taking long strides in the opposite direction. Quinn waited until his tall back had disappeared into the stairwell before he moved, breaking into a jog as he hurried back to the control room. He ran into Saul and Virgil leaving. Virgil barely spared him a glance, but Saul paused, looking up at him plaintively, yet not exactly with suspicion. They wanted the same things: Nazir dead, Brody neutralized, Carrie safe. But Saul couldn’t trust Quinn not to put his own mission first, and Quinn couldn’t trust Saul not to hijack it. They stared at each other for a few seconds, until finally Saul nodded, pulling on his cap as he turned and left.


	8. In Memoriam

**In Memoriam**

There were few times in his life Peter Quinn had felt so relieved: when he was 7 and Anthony Kavanagh helped him hide a puppy from their foster parents, when he was 16 and a dark man showed up on the doorstep and gave him an out, when he was 31 and his son was born a healthy baby boy, and when he was 35 and Carrie Mathison stumbled towards him on the warehouse lawn. 

“Lower your weapons, she’s with us!” he hollered at the SWAT team, pushing his way through them, trying to find his footing on the muddy ground. She was in shock, blinded by the flood lights, confused by the mass of people and yelling, taking little steps as if this were her first time on earth. He immediately felt protective of her. And so he gave in a little.

“Carrie?” he asked cautiously, holding out a hand as her eyes looked in his direction. She was adamant about Nazir, trying to get back into the warehouse, glancing around wildly as if he had escaped and was merely walking among them. The side of her face and neck was streaked with blood, and as he put his arm around her, he could smell it: sweat and blood and earth, that unmistakable coppery mix. His mouth pooled with saliva.

She was still fighting him, and he held her straight to get a good look at her eyes, but she wouldn’t hold still, determined to find Nazir even after what he had put her through. Her body was trembling, her breath fast, her pupils heavily dilated. He tried to get the story out of her as they slowly shuffled to the medic. He tried not to concentrate on the shaking of her shoulders in the scoop of his elbow, that red streak of blood across her lips, the bright spot of anger under his tongue at how weak she seemed, how broken Nazir had left her. 

She spun a story he wasn’t sure he bought, at least not then when she held herself tight, a pace away from him, still looking confused and pitiful. “I-I escaped,” she said, but her voice was clear. She was lucid, even through her shock, her trembling. She ran her hands over her arms. “I’m _freezing_ ,” she whimpered, almost in tears, as if it had suddenly dawned on her. Christ, he was done for, wasn’t he. Because he had trouble giving a fuck about Nazir when Carrie gave him that look, and when he took off his jacket and easily draped it over her shoulders, his heart pounded. His tell-tale heart, he was sure, pounding through his throat and hands, where they brought her back against his chest. She fit there, and he squeezed her arm, keeping her close until he had to deposit her on the back of the ambulance. 

They had abruptly switched topics to the vice-president’s death. Quinn looked at her frowning, beaten face and sighed. “Walden… died.” She gawked at him, trying to process it, then looking away, almost as if a flash of guilt crossed her thoughts. 

“How?” She looked back at him as he leaned against the ambulance door, supporting himself with an arm, closing her off from the chaotic scene behind them. She was with-holding something, he was sure, but he still couldn’t refute the urge to shelter her, as if she wasn’t an experienced CIA officer. As if she needed it. It sure looked like she needed it, shivering on the back of the bumper, clutching his jacket close to her bruised throat. He could see her blood starting to streak its collar, and the morbid little voice in the back of his brain told him he wouldn’t wash it. Not that he could wash her off anyway.

“Heart attack. In his house.” He gave a light shrug. “Apparently, his pacemaker malfunctioned.” He watched Carrie’s response carefully, and in her shock, she couldn’t hide it. He saw it on her face, plain as day. Nazir, probably Brody too, had their hands in it. “So sit,” he told Carrie, his voice gentler than his thoughts. “Do whatever this guy tells you.” He gestured to the paramedic digging through supplies behind her. “I’ll be right back, hopefully with Nazir, okay?” As he pushed off the ambulance door, she looked at him in panic, confusion. He paused a moment, just as the paramedic came to the back of the ambulance.

“Miss, I have to run across the compound. My partner has our backup suture kit - this one’s been contaminated.” The medic, a burly man whose nametag read H. Harris, gave Carrie a quick onceover. “Will you be alright to sit tight for five minutes?”

Quinn replied instead of her, who was staring at the unfamiliar man in surprise, as if she hadn’t noticed him before. “She’s in shock,” he said, taking a step back to her. “She shouldn’t be left alone-“

Harris raised his thick eyebrows. “You’re here, aren’t you?”

Quinn glanced between them. Carrie was still shaking, but her eyes were sharp, if slightly panicked. He had the world’s best excuse: he was team lead on a terrorism mission. Nazir was within his grasp, and as soon as Nazir was down, he could take care of Brody and get out. But instead of going back to his job, he nodded at Harris and took the seat next to Carrie. She immediately sunk into him and he shifted to wrap his arm around her shoulders, getting a mouthful of her dirty hair as she dropped her cheek against his shirt. He sighed, watching the blonde strands ruffle from his breath, the hand on her arm sliding up and down in a light stroke, warming her up. They watched a SWAT team gear up and then down, moving to a new location on the other side of the warehouse. 

The smell of her was stronger now, no florals in her hair anymore. Maybe he liked it better. He tried not to think about her, even though she was in his arms, her breasts against his chest. He tried not to feel that, but then it was suddenly all he could think about.

“Quinn.”

He grunted a response.

“Stop.” She laid a hand on his thigh and he nearly jumped back at the touch. His knee had been bouncing rapidly, compensating for all the energy he was ignoring in his fingertips, his throat, his chest, that intense burn deep down below his stomach. “It’s too much.” She was referring to the movement transferring through him, shaking her, but he thought instead about the complete betrayal of all his bodily organs. 

He unclenched his teeth, letting his knee still, and hoping her palm didn’t go any higher. Hoping it did go higher. What the fuck would he do if it went higher. A strong impulse throbbed at the base of his skull as he felt her face move, looking up at him. He figured she was looking for a response, so he gave another small shrug. He seemed to be getting really good at those. “Sorry.” 

And oh Christ, her breath was suddenly on his neck. She was looking at him, and he could see all the bruising along her temple, all the blood down her shirt, in her hair. Her face was so close. Her eyes closed when she kissed him, her lips chapped and rough, somehow still softer than what he figured. The shock of it went straight down his spine, right to the base of his genitals. He should have hesitated, but he was a son of a bitch, so he didn’t. Her mouth opened and he drew her tighter, his fingers probably leaving a bruise on her arm, his other hand coming up to the side of her throat, finding her hair. 

The kiss itself was sweet, almost innocent, though her tongue was slick against his. Was it the shock, the ordeal of being Nazir’s hostage, was he some sorry excuse for Brody? He tried not to care, intent to feel the slope of her mouth, maybe let his free hand slip along the exposed skin beneath her clothes, the line down her chest. God, she was safe, and she was pressed tightly against him. It was hard to feel alarmed, and easy to forget everything that had gone wrong. They had fought, touched, laughed, and he had fallen for her so fast he only then noticed. He only, in that second, admitted it to himself. But she had fucked Brody once, twice, maybe a hundred times, and he was a fucking chump. 

The crackle of his earpiece was sombering. “Sir, what’s your ETA?”

He pulled immediately away from Carrie, practically leaving her hanging midair. Her eyes snapped open, clear, though she seemed surprised to find him on the other end of her breath. “Fuck,” he said, his voice louder than he intended. He lifted his hand from where it had wound through Carrie’s hair, and put his com to his mouth. “Two minutes.”

Harris was striding toward them on the warehouse lawn, holding a cardboard box. He reached around the other side of Carrie and dumped it in the back of the ambulance. “You can go,” Harris told Quinn briskly, opening an emergency blanket. Quinn blinked, realizing the man hadn’t seen their exchange.

“Your coat,” Carrie said suddenly, struggling to pull off the jacket he had loaned her.

“Keep it.”

“No.” She shook her head, keeping his gaze, ignoring Harris as he fussed over them. “It’s cold.” 

Her concern for him left an empty ache somewhere in his chest, so he took his coat back, glad for the residual heat as he slipped it back through his arms. He paused, watching as Harris took hold of her chin, flashing lights in her eyes, and he felt childish, wanting reassurance from her that he wasn’t a whim, a mistake. He wanted to kiss her again: hello, goodbye, please come in. But she was distracted, answering the medic’s questions, so he turned and walked away, unsure about his churning gut. 

…

What the fuck. What the actual fuck was she doing. He had told her no. No, she couldn’t question Roya. No, she wasn’t allowed within fifty feet of the interrogation room. Of course she didn’t listen. What, did he think just because she kissed him for all of two seconds, that she would suddenly care about his orders? 

His hands still burned with it, his mouth still wanting it. Her hair in his hands, in the dark. 

But then she had fucked it up: insulted his soldiers, accused Galvez of treason, sent them all on a wild goose chase to apprehend a wounded analyst. She had been crazed, and it made him very uneasy. Yet he couldn’t remove the rose-coloured glasses, that professional admiration building. Even as she sat on the other side of the mirror, betraying his direct command, she was coaxing it out of Roya. 

Except then she wasn’t.

Roya grabbed Carrie by the hands, digging her nails into the deep wounds on Carrie’s wrists. Hot rage poured down the center of Quinn’s chest, and he felt it directly behind his eyeballs, his feet already moving by themselves, running through the interrogation door. Why was she sitting there taking it? Roya was handcuffed and chained to the table - Carrie could’ve easily pushed her away, stood to escape, but she just sat there, looking horrified. He should’ve stopped it the moment he saw her in there, but she was getting to him. He gave her an inch and she took a foot, and now she had dug herself a hole. Roya would never talk. 

Quinn grabbed Roya by the throat, hauling her back in her seat, her hands ripping free of Carrie’s wrists. That alone would’ve subdued her, but the reflex had taken over. Apprehend, neutralize. He slammed her a second time down in her chair, her neck snapping back, pushing the air from her lungs. She was still shouting in Arabic, but he went for Carrie instead, leaving Roya in a fury. He practically lifted Carrie from her seat, his hand on her back, though she didn’t need much coaxing. Her weight was familiar on his palm, and he tugged her from the room before he could kick Roya’s teeth down her screaming throat. 

She was starting to blubber, and the exhaustion hit Carrie all at once. Quinn was rubbing his palms over her arms and she tried not to fall forward against his chest. He led her a bit further down the hall, away from the agents guarding Roya’s door. His lined face was concerned, and his assault on Roya hadn’t broken a sweat, clearly hadn’t even fazed him. The thought of that rattled her even more and she hugged herself, keeping him at arm’s length, unable to look at his blue gaze, and so she stared at his chest. 

“No,” she protested weakly, as he offered an escort home. His hand had dropped to her elbow and although his grip was light, it was secure. She had kissed him earlier. She had wanted him, had seen the comfort he was offering, so she fucked it up like she always fucked it up: by giving in and letting herself feel it. She compared him to Brody, the terrible person she was. His lips had been thinner, stronger, his tongue wider, his deodorant spicier, making her nose sting even hours later. Brody kissed her like he was scared to break her, while Quinn kissed her like she was already broken. 

She had called Brody out of guilt, wanting to hear his voice, her mania starting to creep in - the lithium withdrawal. Her heart had bloomed in her chest at his voice, and she had nearly forgotten about the other man she had kissed in the back of the ambulance. But then Quinn had checked on her again, his voice softer, his back straighter, his hands lingering longer on her arms as they worked through the night. She found herself wanting to kiss him again, but when she looked at his face, she saw Brody behind him. They life they would have, when Nazir was dead and Jessica conceded. 

“I’m not asking.” Quinn frowned at her. “You’ve been up for a day and half.” 

The interrogation had been disastrous. She couldn’t cry, not in front of him, but the tears were already threatening. Quinn’s hands came up to her shoulders again, and he stooped down to force her to lift her gaze. She blinked through the blurry space, watching as Quinn’s face sharpened. His hair was messed in a different way, and she realized he hadn’t slept either. His palms were so heavy on her, she thought she’d fall to the floor, and as if sensing this, he let her go.

“Nothing’s gonna happen without you, I promise.” His voice was low, intimate, and her heart beat quicker in response, unable to block their kiss from her mind. She let out a shaky sigh, nodded viciously, determined not to cry, and turned to hide her face from him. His hand came to her shoulder as he let her go, though she felt him watch her walk down the hall. 

…

He hadn’t meant to watch. He just wanted to make sure that she was alright, that she had gotten home and all the lights were off in her house, that she was finally asleep. Nazir might have been dead, but her kidnapping was fresh. Her tongue and hands and mouth and hair were fresh. He thought about taking her to her bed, about the way she would look in the dark, under him, her fingernails cutting marks into his back. 

He did not come here for that. 

She wouldn’t take him anyway.

He wanted to be angry, but he found himself strangely tired instead. When the excitement had ended, he had looked at Carrie across the evening sun, and her face looked expectant, like she wanted him to walk over. He had _wanted_ to walk over, bring her close, kiss her again. But with Estes’ orders not a minute old, he couldn’t think to face her, not when he was about to cause her so much grief. It was much easier when he played the asshole. 

He didn’t even need his scope from his vantage point, sitting in his car across the street. He could clearly see Brody with the naked eye, standing on Carrie’s front stoop, nervously pacing. It would be extremely satisfying to put a bullet in him, to end the competition Brody didn’t even know existed. As he leaned back in his seat, Quinn watched Brody shove his hands into his pockets, then take them out again, wiping them on his jacket. He was beginning to feel indifferent to the man: just another notch in the thousands of missions. Maybe Quinn didn’t have Carrie, but neither did Brody, because in less than 24 hours he would be dead. 

The townhouse’s front door opened and Carrie stepped into the street light. She was in her sleeping clothes, but had clearly been awake, leaning against the door frame. He hated seeing the light smile on her face, not when Brody was on the other end, and his pulse raced uncomfortably when Brody lifted a hand to her cheek, offering a loving caress that Quinn couldn’t even fathom. He stroked her face for too long, until Carrie took his palm, but instead of pushing it away, kissed its inside. 

What was that feeling. Fuck him, it hurt. Shame, an emotion he thought he had burned back in Hong Kong. But it spread deep through his teeth, and he ran his tongue over his molars to try and erase it. 

He couldn’t stop looking, and when Carrie stepped back to invite Brody in, he felt that tell-tale twinge of jealousy. She had used him for comfort, and that was all. He was a convenient shoulder, but not even a convenient dick. If he had grown the balls to walk up to her house 30 minutes ago when he first arrived, would she show him that same care, or would she offer an awkward thanks and send him on his way. 

Quinn inhaled deeply, letting his painful breath leave through his nose as he dropped the back of his skull to the headrest, shifting in his seat. He swallowed, trying not to clench his jaw, but he thought about Brody in Carrie’s arms and that familiar rage was back.


	9. The Choice

**The Choice**

It burned the hell out of him that the first time he saw Carrie naked, it was through his magnification scope. He had no idea why he did it to himself. He couldn’t watch the first time, as Brody pulled her off the couch and removed her clothes. But the tuna can was empty, and curiosity got the better of him around 0200 hours. The bedroom curtains were open and his scope picked up the most perfect, painful view. 

Brody’s back was to him, and that made it easy to ignore, his gaze pinning Carrie down. Her hips rolled forward and back, sending waves through her torso, across her breasts, to her neck, and up her face. Her hair fell over her shoulders and Quinn felt his fingers twitch on the end of his scope, as if they remembered the feel of it, of her against him. It had been almost a week. She had been on leave, and he no longer had a reason to keep up the pretence, so he sat and waited for Brody to make a mistake. He had nearly called her no less than 20 times, each time unable to finish the number, his thumbs shaking over his cell. She hadn’t called him either, and he knew why.

He shifted in his cold seat on the dock, an attempt to relieve some of the pressure between his legs, but the friction only made it worse. 

“Shit,” Quinn muttered, dropping the scope, unable to keep watching as Brody’s face came into view. He had seen worse over the years: death, sodomy, rape, unthinkable abuse. Perhaps he had grown immune to its nature, but this was Carrie - and her sexual exploits seemed relatively tame in comparison. She was the woman he didn’t even know a month ago, and now he couldn’t get over her. If - when - he killed Brody, it would destroy her, and then she would find his killer and destroy him. It didn’t matter if she loved Brody, or if was all just a manic side-effect, a missed dose, a schoolgirl crush. It - he - would destroy her.


	10. Tin Man is Down

**Tin Man is Down**

Carrie tried his cell phone number again. She couldn’t even remember the last time she saw Quinn, but she could picture him, looking at her in that impassive way of his, maybe even a little sad for once. David Estes had walked off behind him, and Quinn’s eyes had met hers, his frame backlit by the setting sun in a dreamy light. She had thought he would walk over and join her, congratulate her, maybe shake her hand, kiss her, drive her back to the agency and let his palm settle on her knee. Maybe it was a dream.

So she had gone to Brody - maybe Brody had come to her - and then she hadn’t seen Quinn again, not even after the bombing. And if she were honest with herself, she hadn’t thought about him. She had only thought about Brody, their nights before the shit hit the fan, and then everything immediately after, revolving circles of turmoil. Off her lithium, everything seemed insane, yet amazing. But it was getting difficult to justify her own behaviour - she was at the brink: the point where her peak had hit its highest point and it was only a slippery slope down. There was a vague ache in her thighs and she winced, remembering the man from the 24-hour liquor mart, and then she felt the tender bruising on her back, remembering their urgent tryst on her front stairs two nights before. She pressed her fingers into her spine. 

“ _You’ve reached Peter Quinn. Leave a message._ ” His answering machine was abrupt and Carrie ended the call before it could record her painful silence. Before she could leave another desperate, pathetic message. He was either out of the country or ignoring her very existence. It stung, though she couldn’t figure out why. Brody seemed a little less important these days, and Quinn’s absence more so. Had he left because the operation was over? That didn’t explain his refusal to call her back. 

She threw the phone down onto the couch beside her, running her fingers through her hair. Her tongue felt like sandpaper against the roof of her mouth, the alcohol remnants fuzzy in her brain. Saul had just publicly, professionally destroyed her on national television. Her _dad_ knew for Christ’s sake. Her heart felt hollow, desperate, and she couldn’t stop the unwanted sob that escaped her. She wiped her snot on the front of her t-shirt, her eyes already red. She was alone now - Brody was gone, Quinn was gone, Saul had sold her down the river. She had been alone countless times before, and yet this felt worse - she wanted the room to swallow her up whole. 

Her phone rang by her side, and for one hopeful second she thought it might be Quinn calling her back.

_Maggie._

She ignored it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Short, but necessary. Hence the double-post.


	11. Uh... Oh... Ah...

**Uh… Oh… Ah…**

His shitty rent-a-house seemed even shittier on this side of Caracas. Quinn dropped his plastic bag of booze on the kitchen floor, peeling off his jacket, dropping it on the counter. The day had been long - first day back and no Estes, no Brody, no Carrie. Just a quiet little woman who got the job because of her religious associations. Fara was naive - he figured she wouldn’t last the week, not in that Boys’ Club. 

Cracking open the Jameson bottle, he took a swig from its neck as he focused on the rusted safety box in front of him. He didn’t keep much in it - a few thousand dollars, an unregistered handgun, the passport with his birth name on it, and the phone he used when he was on the straight and narrow - drinking the CIA kool-aid. He uncoiled the charger from where it wrapped around the phone’s screen, and plugged it into the wall. 

As the phone beeped its reboot jingle, he unwrapped the pathetic excuse for a sandwich he had bought at the Langley cafeteria - the last one in the cold case. Turkey and swiss, with a texture reminiscent of corrugated cardboard. He washed it down with a few swigs of whiskey, feeling the alcohol dull the worst of the day’s edges. 

His phone beeped impatiently as its home screen loaded, flashing popups and text as every missed message from the past eight weeks was delivered. There really shouldn’t have been so many - he had left notice with Julia that he would be overseas, his colleagues knew that he would be unreachable through this line, and he wasn't even due at the dentist for another 7 weeks.

_Carrie M. (call me asap, dated 59 days ago)_

_Carrie M. (you there?, dated 58 days ago)_

_Rob W. (i’ll be in town sunday. beers?, dated 55 days ago)_

_Carrie M. (don’t be a fucking child, dated 54 days ago)_

_Carrie M. (quinn, what the fuck, dated 50 days ago)_

_Shauna Rooney (Hi, Peter, just letting you know they're replacing the power lines along the street tomorrow. Shouldn’t affect your place. Let me know if you’ve questions, dated 45 days ago)_

_Carrie M. (i’m sorry. you’re coming back, right?, dated 42 days ago)_

She had left him no less than 37 different texts, and 11 voicemails. They varied from panicked to angry to grovelling, and then to clearly, undeniably manic. He rubbed at the frown in his forehead as he scrolled through them. They had gotten increasingly longer and conspiratorial the last three weeks, and the voicemails were worse - most had been left in the last 10 days. She was sobbing through the latest one and his hand tightened on his phone, squeezing the case so hard his fingers shook. His fingers never shook. He barely understood what she was saying beneath her hiccuping, something about Saul and Brody and the newspaper and Congress. 

He deleted them all, staring down at the whiskey bottle, unmoving as the anxiety rushed over him. The boy, dead on the floor, blood pooling around his small body, his own son - a boy he didn’t even know, because he was a fucking coward - dead on the street, his own finger on the trigger. 

His stomach twisted and he was forced to abruptly lean over the counter and puke his barely-digested sandwich into the kitchen sink. His phone clattered to the tile floor as sweat broke over his face, his mouth emptying coffee and bile from the bottom of his stomach. He hung over the basin for a second before turning on the tap, the water flushing out the sink. He rinsed his mouth out with the Jameson and took another swig for good measure. 

Quinn’s vision swayed with the nausea as he bent over to pick up his fallen phone. He leaned against the counter, blinking at the screen as he swiped through his contacts to find her number. It rang five times.

_“Hi, this is the voicemail of Carrie Mathison. Please leave your name and number and I will return your call as soon as possible.”_

He didn’t leave a message, and instead hit the next contact on his list, the line picking up after one ring.

“Hello?” He sounded tired.

“Saul? Have you heard from Carrie? She’s not answering her phone.” He ran the cold tap again and splashed water on his face, unsure if he was pissed or just exhausted. 

There was a silence on the other end, way too long, and Quinn was suddenly on high-alert, bracing himself for whatever ball was about to drop. “Dar didn’t tell you?” Saul asked finally.

Quinn’s jaw clenched, sending a tremor through his temple. “Tell me _what_ ,” he deadpanned, staring at the grain on his wooden kitchen cupboards, everything blurring into the start of inevitable anger. 

“We had Carrie… pulled from the general population.”

Quinn impatiently waited for the rest, for whatever the hell that meant, but Saul was silent for a very long moment. Quinn turned, rubbing his forehead to erase the pounding behind his eyebrows, as he leaned his back against the counter. “So where is she? A holding cell? What the fuck for?” He was almost proud of himself in that moment, for not raising his voice, for not slamming his phone against the granite countertop until it was discernible only as metal pulp. 

“She’s in the psychiatric ward at MCH.” Saul exhaled loudly through the line, as if it was a relief to say.

Quinn stared across his kitchen, unsure if he heard correctly. “She’s what?” 

Saul’s shrug was audible. Quinn pictured the expression that was probably on the Director’s face: frown, raised eyebrows and wrinkled forehead, upturned eyes, mouth open. “She went off her meds. She started crying from the rooftops about Brody - his supposed innocence, his suicide vest, all the CIA fuck-ups that would be the envy of Alex E. Jones.” 

He licked his lips in annoyance, picking up his jacket and starting to haul it through his arms. “So you put her in the fucking _psych ward_?! Jesus, Saul, this is _Carrie_ , for Christ’s sakes!” Okay, so maybe his irritation had teetered across the line to anger. He pulled his unwilling jacket back down with his free arm and slammed it into the wet sink.

“We can’t have a manic Carrie out on the street. It’s not good for anybody. She needs to level out, and if it has to be in the psychiatric unit, so be it.” 

There was something about Saul’s voice, like he didn’t really believe what he was saying, but was making a damn good effort to convince them both. Quinn scrubbed his chin with his palm, starting to pull the phone down from his mouth, before having second thoughts and lifting it back to his face. “Does she know?”

“Know what?” Saul asked tiredly. 

“About me?”

“That you’re not an analyst?” Saul replied humourlessly, despite the dry chuckle that followed. “Not officially, no. She went off-book not long after the Langley attack.” 

Quinn wasn’t sure if that was good or bad, but he hung up on Saul without saying goodbye. 

…

Fuck him, the place was fucking depressing. Thorazine shuffle, doped-up stupor, boring - meant to be calming - shades of beige and blue. Someone was screaming down the corridor, and there was rattling of a bed pan, maybe the cage on the windows, before a door was slammed abruptly shut. 

The attending nurse had been a plump woman who gave him a double take when he requested the room number for Carrie Mathison. Her eyes had dropped to his visitor’s sticker, then to his hand - searching for a wedding ring, no doubt. What a fucking world that would be, married to Carrie. His lips had thinned as he tried to contain a chuckle, but it had sort of come out of his chest anyway in a light wheeze. 

“Sure, hon,” the nurse had said. “Down the hall to your left. Room 226.” And she had hit a button that buzzed the door behind her, unlocking it. Christ, he was nervous. Would she be lucid? Strapped down? Kicking and screaming, chewing on her arms? He had watched One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest as an 8-year-old, with Anthony and Jimmy Williams. It had left him with a vivid imagination, it seemed. But Carrie was only sitting on her bed, her knees curled up to her chest, rocking back and forth in agitation. His chest felt weird as he looked at her, as her eyes lifted to his for the first time in two months.

“Shit, Carrie,” he sighed. 

She held her palms up in surrender, looking around her strategically-empty room in embarrassment. Her gaze wouldn’t meet his again and she looked over at the floor as she shrugged in defeat. “Have a seat,” she said, as if she wasn’t at all surprised to see him, as if she had written their appointment in her day planner.

_Peter Quinn. Debrief in the loony bin at 18:30._

He felt awkward as he walked into the room, his hands hanging limply at his sides as if unsure where else to go. She was only dressed in a hospital gown, and she didn’t seem to care that with her knees up like that, he got a pretty good view directly between her legs. White hospital-issued underwear. He couldn’t look there, not like that, and he swallowed heavily, his heart having inched its way up his throat. The foot of the bed looked safe, so he aimed his feet there. “I didn’t know about this, I came as soon as I heard.”

“Did you come to get me out?” she asked, nearly demanded. She was definitely manic, running her hands through her hair, over her face, her entire body full of bottled energy just itching to get out. He wished he could get her out, pull her into him, soothe her state, bust her out of the hospital room. But he knew next to nothing about manic-depression. And she couldn’t be trusted. 

“I-I can’t.” He stood a pace away from the bed, watching as she ran her fingers through her hair, a normal Carrie gesture, but it seemed different now. It made him uncomfortable, watching her move, and he was painfully aware that he had no idea what he was doing. Maybe it wasn’t a good idea, coming here like this. 

“Just-just-just leave,” Carrie interrupted in frustration, covering her face with her hands. 

He stepped forward, carefully, as if taming a wild animal, coming around the side of her narrow cot and sitting down on its edge. He could make her see. He _had_ to make her see. He wanted to reach out and touch her, but he kept his hands on the thin sheets between them.

“You can’t go around spilling Agency secrets. You _know_ that,” he said quietly, fixing his gaze on hers. Her pupils were huge, so wide against the whites of her eyes. Why the fuck had she gone and done this to herself. She sighed, rolling her eyes, her tongue moving strangely in her mouth, pressing against her lower jaw. He wished she would let her arms drop, open up for him. She didn’t look at all happy to see him, not even after the 48 various messages she left on his phone. He wasn’t sure what he thought would happen - he had felt it, maybe, that familiar terrible tug at the pit of his stomach. Even when she rebuffed him, rolling her eyes and twitching her head on her neck - he wanted her. It had only grown worse.

“Saul’s _panicked_ ,” he continued, his voice soft. She gave a tiff of derision, finally glancing back at him and shrugging again, that quick little movement that was practically an insult.

“About me.” She fixed her hair again and his eyes followed the movement.

“About the CIA - if it even has a future.” 

“So he blames the explosion on me. _That’s_ his plan to save the agency.” She does a pattern of quick, agitated movements, slapping palms, rocking, darting glances. 

“It’s fucked up, I know-“

“ _Good_.” 

“-but it’s not gonna get you out of here,” Quinn continued, as if she hadn’t interrupted him. Carrie rocked again, eyes glassy, shaking her head. Could you ration with mania? He wasn’t sure if she had a clue, if she even heard a word he said. Why was he even bothering? Did he really think that he would be different, that she would listen to him when she hadn’t even listened to Saul?

“No. No, my _family_ will be at the hearing tomorrow, and _they_ will get me out.” She seemed convinced about it, adding all sorts of physical ticks to emphasize her point, but Quinn knew better. She was digging herself in deeper, the longer she kept at it, the insistence that she was right at all costs. He couldn’t let her, she didn’t know Dar Adal like he did.

“Carrie,” he said, his voice growing a touch louder as his patience wore thin, “you have to-“

“What? _What_ do I have to do?” she exploded, her voice raising, sending alarms ringing in the back of his head. “Look where they put me, I don’t have to do _anything_.” 

Quinn stared at her, at the hole he had dug himself. He blinked quickly, quelling his anger at her stubbornness, that chemical illness that was the unmedicated Carrie. “You _have to be careful_ ,” he said, leaning forward, trying to keep her roving gaze, hoping she would at least understand something he was saying. “There are things that happened before the explosions that you’re not even aware of.”

She looked at his face, rolling her tongue into her cheek as if thinking, her hands still clutching her knees, keeping her guard up against him, as if he were a stranger, and not her colleague, her friend, even. There was a pool of uncomfortable saliva underneath Quinn’s tongue. Brody fucking her in that hotel room, in the cabin. His hands on her breasts, her neck, in her hair. The back of Brody’s head under a crosshair. “People targeted. I-“ Fuck, his voice had caught. “I-I’m worried you’re gonna get yourself hurt.”

His admission hung between them as Carrie stared uncertainly, then suspiciously. She narrowed her eyes, tilting her head, and he knew the wrong words had come out. “He sent you here, didn’t he?” she asked. 

“Who?” He kept his eyes on hers, but he knew what she meant.

“Saul,” Carrie snapped. “He sent you to _threaten_ me.”

Quinn recoiled, insulted, ashamed that she would think that, even though they would’ve deserved it. “No… no, he did not _send_ me-“ How did she think that he was Saul Berenson’s errand boy, out to spy on his surrogate-daughter, bring her back into the fold. All of his concern for the woman evaporated as his self-doubt replaced it, all the anger for every god damn mistake he had ever made. 

“Just leave.” 

“Carrie, will you just _listen_?“

“Leave me _alone_!” she exploded, leaning forward to spit in his face. He stayed seated across from her, not that easily scared, but trying to control his emotions before he said another word. She was a different person than the one he had known - betrayed and alone. He knew what it was like, and yet she continually spurned him. 

“What’s going on?” a voice behind him asked and his hand went to his side, searching for a weapon that wasn’t there, as his head spun to look in the doorway. A soft-looking orderly peered at them in concern. “Are you okay?” he asked, more to Carrie than to Quinn, as if he was hurting her. As if he would touch a hair on her delusional fucking head. 

“Everything is _fine_ ,” he replied, louder than he should’ve, more irritated than his training allowed, trying to placate the harshness with a surrendering gesture of his hand. 

“He was just leaving.”

Out of all the things she had just spat at him, that was the worst. She wanted him gone, out of her room, probably out of her head. He stared at her, waiting for her to retreat, as if she were bluffing like usual. His heart hammered in his mouth, the rejection just as bitter as he remembered. She wouldn’t look at him, first twisting her head one way, then the next, pulling at the collar to her gown. Finally, she settled, refusing to meet his gaze, sulking as she childishly turned away from him. 

Fine. 

He tried not to be offended, but it was impossible not to be. The bridge of his nose tingled, his sinuses awakening in his face, and he chomped down hard on the side of his tongue to hide the emotion that he felt climbing up the back of his throat. He glanced at her again as he pushed himself up, leaving her alone on the bed, glaring at the orderly as he stalked by him, the poor man taking a step back to let him pass. He had to squash the urge to drop-kick him into the linoleum floor. 

Quinn could feel his ears burning hot as he neared the corridor’s end, his jaw pounding with the effort of his teeth clenching together. He needed out, he needed air, alcohol, sex, death. Behind him, the orderly’s voice was loud with alarm.

“Hey! Miss - do not - I will use force if I - “

He nearly ignored it, but then he heard Carrie yelp loudly, painfully, and he turned instinctually. “Quinn!” she yelled down the hall. She had left her room, struggling against the orderly, his large forearms crushing her chest, her legs kicking the air as he restrained her. “Quinn, no, come back. I-I didn’t mean it…” She was sobbing and that sound drove a nail through his diaphragm, twisting, and he was overcome with an emotion so intense he didn’t even know what it was. He didn’t have to decide, his feet bolting back down the hall.

“Sir, stay there-“ the orderly was demanding, but he took a hand off of Carrie to keep Quinn at arm’s length. As Carrie squirmed, Quinn grabbed the offending hand, snapping his wrist back to disarm him, but not seriously injure. The orderly swore, and Quinn elbowed his way into Carrie, tugging her free from the other man, bringing her into his chest. Her arms immediately wound around his neck, elbows tightening as she sobbed against the open neck of his shirt. The orderly had regained movement of his fingers, and he tried again to pull Carrie away.

“Hey!” Quinn snapped, turning to block the attempt. “ _Hey_ , just let her be for a minute.” He rubbed Carrie’s back with his palm, stroking her spine through the thin polyester gown. “Carrie? Are you gonna relax for a second?”

She didn’t speak, but nodded miserably against his chest. Her fingers dug into the back of his hair, lightly tickling the nape of his neck, and it sent a light shock through his body, practically feeling it in his shoes. 

“Okay?” he asked the orderly. The man gave him a long look, still unsure, but was seemingly just relieved that Carrie was docile. 

“Okay,” the orderly replied after a few seconds. 

Quinn dropped his head to talk closer to Carrie’s ear. He squeezed her shoulders, rubbing his palms over her arms, hoping that it was enough to calm her, that he was enough to keep her out of the physical restraints attached to her cot. “Carrie?”

She rubbed her forehead against him like a shy toddler and he sighed into her hair, well aware that the orderly was not about to leave them alone. He slowly backed them into her room, the orderly following them, standing in the doorway. He kept his back to him, hiding Carrie, waiting for her to come around - but she wasn’t relaxing, still trembling in his arms, mumbling something so quiet he couldn’t understand. 

“Carrie?” he repeated for what felt like the millionth time. He tried to pull back to get a look at her, but she kept her elbows tight on his shoulders and as her lips met the side of his neck, he felt that involuntary bodily reaction. Heat pooled in his groin, his stomach tensing with the sudden blood flow. She kissed his neck again, right where his pulse was jumping, and it took every ounce of resolve to not react, to keep his hands on the safe parts of her back. 

“Where were you?” she was asking, her lips moving against his skin. He tried not to look at the bed. They were in the Maryland psych ward, for fuck’s sakes. His heartbeat was pounding in his legs, his crotch, his chest, his jaw. Like a fool, he thought of finally having her, let the orderly watch - he’s not sure he cared. It was the best thought he had all day - he wished he were a shittier human being.

“I’m sorry I wasn’t here,” he replied. Even if he wanted to tell her, he couldn’t; it was classified, and Carrie was an enemy of the state. 

“You left me.” She raised her head, leaving his shirt a mess, and blinked bloodshot eyes at him. 

“No-no, I didn’t. I’m right here, alright, Carrie?” 

She nodded tearfully. Fuck him, he had no idea what to do now. “Okay.” 

“Let’s sit down… here.” He carefully guided her over and sat her on the edge of the bed. He knelt in front of her, removing her arms from around his neck and folding her hands in her lap. “I gotta go, Carrie. But I’m not leaving you, okay? You gotta rest for your hearing tomorrow.” 

“Are you sure?” she whispered, leaning forward in fear.

He nearly laughed. “Yeah, Carrie.” 

She threw a dirty look at the orderly, who still stood in the door with an unimpressed look. “I don’t like him.”

He had a hundred retorts, but all of them were too honest, and none of them were appropriate. Instead, he started to pull away, trying to stand, but Carrie grabbed his wrists again. Christ, it scratched that itch. Dar and Saul had locked her in the asylum and he was getting his rocks off. It was hard to care. 

“ _Carrie_ …” he warned, sighing as he knelt back down, bringing his face close to hers, watching as she ducked her head in embarrassment, greasy hair falling over her shoulders. “Just go to sleep. It’ll be better in the morning.”

She nodded, obliging, trusting him, and fuck, that made him feel good. “Okay,” she said mildly, not manic or depressive, just numb. 

He kissed the side of her head, a safe zone, his hand lingering on her shoulder cap. It was too tempting. He felt himself lean in a few seconds longer, lightly kissing her mouth, her lips immediately pressing back, just briefly. It was too timid. His knees cracked as he pushed himself up, completely breaking their contact. He straightened his shirt, clearing his throat as he composed himself, leaving Carrie again, the orderly staring at him as he passed. 

…

She gawked at him with wild eyes, unnerving disbelief, no longer paying attention to the doctor in front of her. The doctor raised his gaze, following the direction of her head, unsure what her distraction was. Quinn didn’t like the way Carrie was staring at him - he thought she might’ve been pleased to see him, but there was no mistaking the agitation. Her head twisted, lolling back as her tongue pressed into her cheek, and she shook it as the doctor laid a hand on her shoulder.

“No,” she said, loud enough for him to hear at the other end of the hallway. “No!”

Quinn quickened his step, recognizing the second before complete-and-utter-meltdown. Her face was peaked, heavy bags under her eyes, her hair the same mess as the night before, her clothing wrinkled from all the nervous tugging and crumpling. She looked fucking awful, like she hadn’t slept - and she definitely hadn’t. She was wired. On what, he had no idea. Some sort of caffeine cut with meth, by the way she was pacing, running her hands over her neck, along the back of her skull. 

“Carrie?” he asked as he approached, holding out a hand, but not touching her, still too many steps away.

“No!” she spat, crossing her arms over her chest. “What the fuck are you _doing_ here? I don’t want you here! You have to leave.”

And once again, ripped his heart from his fucking chest. Quinn wished he could tear it out himself, so he never had to feel it shrivel up when she looked at him with that utter contempt. He stopped abruptly, his shoes squeaking loudly on the plastic tile, and the doctor - his tag read Dr. Harlan - put both hands on Carrie’s shoulders. 

“Carrie, why don’t you go in and sit down?” he asked quietly, his voice a carefully practiced tiptoe. Carrie didn’t say anything else, but glared daggers at him over the doctor’s shoulder. Was she embarrassed that he was there, or had she reverted back to the errand boy theory. 

Jesus, what had gone so fucking wrong over the last 20 hours. But nothing had gone wrong, had it. She was a bipolar patient who was off her medication, off a high dose of lithium carbonate. Was this the way it would always be? Hot one second, freezing the next. Could he keep up with this train-wreck. He felt that anxiety creeping up his neck again, his mind inconveniently playing the highlight reel of all his most recent failures. That boy on the floor, eyes open but heart stopped. 

Quinn swallowed, watching Carrie sit at a table inside the hearing room. Dr. Harlan was speaking and Quinn had to stare at his mouth to understand.

“I’m a friend - a-a colleague.” _A fucking moron who can’t get over her._ “I thought a character witness might help her case.”

“Are you sure?” Dr. Harlan asked. Quinn looked at his coiffed greying hair, strategic square jaw, perfectly striped shirt. “Your name will be on the record, if you’re asked.”

“Yes, I’m sure,” Quinn replied, letting his eyes travel to where Carrie was nervously looking back at them. The doctor was nodding. 

“That’s fine, I’ll let her know you’re here.” 

Quinn wasn’t sure it was a great idea anymore, but the doctor gave him what was to be a reassuring nod, and turned to follow Carrie into the room. Quinn watched him, mildly annoyed at the good-looking shrink trope, forcing his feet to step over the threshold. Dr. Harlan leaned over Carrie’s chair, speaking quietly, and from that angle, it was difficult to read their lips. He sat in the very last row, for the best vantage point, and when Carrie looked back at him again, he kept his face neutral, trying to redistribute the angles of his jaw, harden his eyelids. She gave a nod, some sort of shrug and the doctor straightened, meeting Quinn’s gaze with a slight smile. He glanced across the aisle, recognizing the male orderly sitting there as the same one from the night before. The orderly gave him an uneasy shuffle in return, but didn’t look over.

But she suddenly seemed excited, standing, and Quinn glanced up as two people walked in. He recognized her father and sister from the file he had memorized: Frank was tall, balding, well-meaning but excitable, his other daughter trim and blonde, professional and calm. One of the first things she did was hand Carrie a cloth purse full of something that rattled like pills. He quietly watched as it all fell apart, carefully observing their family dynamic. He didn’t have to listen to know what was happening: they wanted her back on the lithium, she wanted them to fuck off, to keep sailing in the trades, to ignore all of anyone’s advice. 

Saul had clearly approached the father and sister. They knew about Carrie and the reporter, and it was all about to implode, wasn’t it. The CIA had thrown Carrie in here, and now she was about to be sentenced to stay. Quinn frowned, feeling that heat of guilt start coiling in his throat, trying to ignore it as Carrie became more and more irritated, somewhere between tearful and crazed. She never once looked at him, as if she had completely forgotten they were on the same planet, let alone in the same room. 

When the judge sent it all to hell, she bolted. Everyone jumped, but he didn’t stand soon enough - she didn’t want him there, and they weren’t alone. Too fucking busy feeling sorry for himself. So the orderly grabbed her first, before she was through the door, shoving her back.

“Get off of me-“ Carrie grunted, scrambling for purchase on something else. The bailiff grabbed her other arm, and Quinn knew that he couldn’t touch it - it was not his place. He did not know how to handle her like this. But it was hard to control the reflexes and his body jerked forward uncomfortably, his lips pressing together as he forced himself back. She got in a few good elbows, and the two men struggled to contain her violence, finally grappling onto her arms and pressing her upright. He watched helplessly, his pulse so loud in his ears it was near deafening. Fuck him, he wanted to reach for her, as if he had taken on the role of caregiver, almighty bouncer. 

She was shouting collusions, and he tried to take a step forward again, his hands starting to lift - to throw off the orderlies or grab Carrie by the hands, he wasn’t sure. The bailiff saw him move, must’ve seen something in his face, and he felt the hand placed on his chest. Just a warning for him to stay back, to not try anything. The man could probably feel the pounding of his pulse, his heart thumping inside his ribs. He pried his fingers loose of their fists, watching as Carrie was dragged from the room.


	12. Tower of David

**Tower of David**

Quinn was on constant fucking edge these days: ambien to sleep, dexedrine to stay awake - to pay attention in meetings about whatever bullshit he was in on these days - and a daily dose of 90 proof just to get through it all. He convinced himself it wasn’t that bad. After all, he was functioning, his work was done, his trigger finger was sharp - if a little unhappy - and he had gained back the 10 pounds he lost in Caracas. 

How did he always get drawn in when all he wanted to do was get out.

The plump nurse caught him the first time. He had attempted to just walk in like he did before - before Carrie’s commitment hearing. He had quickly made up a story, wanting to know how she was, how she was doing, as if he hadn’t a fucking clue about privacy regs. The nurse gave him a sad smile, patted his forearm, and told him she couldn’t tell him a god damn thing. So he followed a mechanic up the service elevator and waited for a distracted orderly to leave the side door unsecured. 

He found her sitting on the floor of her room, 226. He might’ve second-guessed himself - the room so dark, it took him a full second to realize that she was huddled in a corner, face buried in her knees. He paused, glancing up and down the empty hall, before he had to enter the room - his clothes too black, his eyes too clear - a distracted orderly turning the corner. 

She didn’t notice when he slipped in, though he briefly blocked the light from the doorway. He waited for her to look up, but she was distracted by her own head, rocking herself back and forth, biting the nail on her closest thumb. 

Quinn’s mouth was dry, the effort of his swallow painful. “Carrie?” he asked quietly, his voice nearly a whisper. He had no excuse, not even sure why he had come, except for the hammering in his chest that must’ve been his heart pounding on his ribs. He had stayed away 3 weeks, after the scene in the hearing. His presence had made it worse, had nudged Carrie further to the edge, and he liked to torture himself about it. Add another thing to the growing list. 

Her eyes lifted from the floor and met his, a frown puckering her forehead, as if she wasn’t sure. “Quinn? What are you doing - you _can’t_ be in here. I’m not allowed-“ She pushed herself back, meeting the wall, trying to move away, but her gaze not wavering from him. He had no idea what she would do - if she would scream bloody murder, alert the orderlies, have him booted from the grounds with a foot up the ass - but she suddenly relaxed, bringing her knees down, inviting him to come closer. Every inch of his body felt the relief, the treacherous warmth of acceptance moving down his arms - she wasn’t rejecting him again. Not this time.

“Don’t worry, I was careful,” he replied, glancing over his shoulder to the corridor, before quickly - silently - crossing the room to the other side of the bed. He knelt down next to her, carefully avoiding the light from the window, and looked her over once. She was pale, eyes glossy from her medication, a reddened bump on her forehead showing a scrape by her hairline.

“Jesus, Carrie, what happened?” 

She winced as his fingers came up to the wound, carefully inspecting for further damage. “Nothing, I’m fine-“ She grabbed his forearm and pulled his hand down, pushing it back into his own lap where it was safely away from her, though she didn’t let go. Her fingers were like ice and he sighed in exasperation, covering both of her hands with his own, trying to bring some warmth back into them. She closed her eyes, and they sat in relative silence, just the light whisps of his callused palms on her soft skin.

“Carrie, if somebody did that to you-“

“ _Nobody_ did it,” she snapped, eyes opening in frustration, her voice catching in their whisper. “Did Saul send you?”

“What?” He blinked at her abrupt change of topic, deja-vu pounding in his ears. Was she still on that fucking train? But she didn’t seem angry this time, she seemed relieved, hopeful, and she pulled back to run her hands through her hair, nearly crying with it. He didn’t negate her assumptions, waiting for her to keep talking, explain her change of heart. 

“He was supposed to come back for me,” she said, turning eyes on him. “I-I’m doing everything right. I’m on my lithium, going to group - he was supposed to get me out of here.” She lifted her hands to her face, surprised at the tears running down her cheeks. “You’ll tell him, right? That I’m better?” 

He tried not to let the conflict of emotion show on his face. Saul had not sent him - Carrie was not a topic they were discussing these days - and Quinn knew Saul would nail his ass if he found out that he had come anyway. She was clearly not better, despite trying her damnedest to convince herself and everyone else. “Sure, Carrie,” he finally sighed. “Don’t worry, I’ll tell him.”

She nodded, still tearing up, wiping her face clean with the front of her t-shirt. Quinn tried not to think too hard about that little white lie, as she slumped against his shoulder. Her body was warm, soft even through their clothes, and he was suddenly aware of how long it had been since he had let anyone comfort him. He lifted his arm and let her settle there, her breath slowing as she dropped to the sleep she had been fighting.


	13. Game On

**Game On**

He was a quarter way through his second glass of the cheapest scotch the corner-store had on hand, when his personal phone rang. His tongue was bordering on numb and when he glanced at the number, it was unfamiliar. A Maryland number, but not from MCH (he had memorized the base numbers). He didn’t know anyone in Maryland, so he let it ring through. Probably a wrong number, or a salesman with a brand new list of personal cell information. 

It vibrated a second later and the screen lit up.

_1 missed call._

_1 new voicemail._

Maybe if he was entirely sober, he would’ve cared more. So he swiped the notification away and went back to watching the minor league hockey game that some website was illegally broadcasting. His phone went off again 10 minutes later, from a different Maryland number.

_1 missed call._

_1 new voicemail._

_You have 2 new voicemails._

He angrily swiped them away, emptying the rest of his glass and slumping back against the futon he had grabbed when Mrs. Rodriguez in 2206 had moved out. Mel’s Movers hadn’t noticed the missing furniture. He impatiently watched the rest of the game, eyeing his phone every few minutes to see if it would ring again. He barely noticed who won, and when the final buzzer rang, he closed his laptop and let his fingers drum across its aluminum case as he looked expectantly at his phone. 

“Fuck,” Quinn muttered, giving in. He grabbed the offending device and unlocked it, hitting the voicemail icon. 

_You have 2 new-_

He punched the 1 icon twice to check the messages, cutting off the annoying female recording. 

“ _It’s me-_ “ At the sound of Carrie’s voice, Quinn started, suddenly painfully sober. He sat up, as if that would help him hear her voice better. “ _-don’t call my cell. Call this number in 5 minutes - it’s a box._ ”

She rattled off a phone booth’s 10-digit number that he recognized as from the second missed call. He deleted the voicemail and waited for the second one.

“ _I know you’re fucking there. Answer your damn phone - please. I need a favour-_ “

He didn’t even wait to hear the rest of the message, ending the call, and immediately dialling the second number. It rang five times, ten times. His knee jumped impatiently and he rubbed his free hand over his hair in frustration. Fuck fuck fuck fuck. Twenty times.

She was gone. Of course she was gone.

Fuck him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ugh. Can you tell I hated these last two episodes? Because I hated these last two episodes.


	14. The Yoga Play

**The Yoga Play**

_Because that was the play._

_Fuck me._

“ _Jesus!_ What the _fuck_ , Quinn? Shouldn’t you be hiding up a tree or something?” Carrie jumped as he stepped out from where he had paused behind the cement post. She nervously glanced around, looking for anybody else in the parking garage, but it was empty. 

He was nonplussed, although his heart pounded a little heavier at the familiar sight of her, at the sheer frustration of the conversations he had overheard on her burner. He forced his hands to still at his side, to keep them from lifting up and touching her face, shaking her arms, grabbing her by the hips and legs and throwing her over his shoulder, stowing her in the back seat of her car, keeping her from making whatever dumb play she had in mind.

“I’m up on your burner phone, I heard your conversation with Agent Hall and your little friend, Max.” He stared her down, trying to determine if she was being manic, or just plain stupid. “What the _hell_ do you think you’re doing?” 

Carrie stared back at him defiantly, like he was a cherry-picker, out on his first job. “If you _heard_ , you should know.” She tugged impatiently on her yoga bag strap. “I’m trying to find Dana Brody.”

How was this still happening to him - it was some god damn black comedy. Brody was probably dead by now in Caracas, and yet Carrie was still obsessed from two thousand miles away. And not just with him, but his family - his bratty teenage daughter, out on the run with her brand new boyfriend. Except this time he couldn’t blame her delusions on her lithium withdrawals. Surely she knew better by now - _take the god damn pills, Carrie_. But when he looked at her gaze, there were something unsettling there, and it sent the hairs on the back of his neck up.

“You’re gonna look for her yourself?” Quinn asked sarcastically, raising his eyebrows. 

“No,” Carrie retorted, again like he was a few screws loose, “I’m gonna get the F.B.I. to do it-“

“ _How_ are you gonna do that?” Quinn interrupted, feeling his teeth start to hurt. “The guy won’t even _talk_ to you.” How easy it had been, to forget how insane she drove him - professionally, and otherwise. That twitch was back along his temple, the anger familiar, sharp, and comforting, after being settled and dull the past month from his daily upper-downer routines. 

Carrie tiffed at him. “Wha- you came in on this operation like, _five_ minutes ago, and now you’re _telling_ me what to do?” 

The fucking mouth on her. He drew his stare from her lips back up to her eyes. His voice was painfully calm, as if he were explaining the situation to a child - not too far off, some days. “You have surveillance all over you. Two teams, as far as i can see.” He watched her roll her eyes, uncomfortable at the lecture. “They realize you’re not who you’re supposed to _be_ … they’ll just kill you.” 

She was as strong-willed as ever, and she was pointedly talking down to him. “They won’t realize… this play works - I’ve used it a dozen times.” Why couldn’t she keep her gaze on him. So they were back at this place, not entirely trusting each other, or maybe trusting each other too much they had gone in the complete other direction, circling back. 

“Well, you’re still risking the operation, let me handle it. I’ll talk to the fed-“

“No,” Carrie pressed, “I know the guy, he’s just gonna jerk you around.” She kept moving her head, and it reminded him sharply of her behaviour in the hospital. His chest felt strangely tight, and he tried not to think about why.

“Carrie… you-you’re under a lot of strain. You’re not thinking clearly.” He watched her reaction, for any tell-tale sign, but it had become hard to determine the medicated Carrie from the unmedicated version. His trips to the hospital had blurred all the lines that he had drawn, nearly all the answers he thought that he had found when it came to her. 

She wasn’t happy that he had broached the subject. “I’m thinking just _fine_ , Quinn,” she snapped, insulted at his assessment of her. She glanced over at the empty parkade, then back at him. But not his eyes - his chest, where the collar of his shirt opened beneath his throat. “If anyone’s risking this operation, it’s _you_. You shouldn’t be anywhere _near_ me-“

His gut twisted, finding the double meaning behind her words. He shouldn’t be trying to get close to her, because she was a lost cause: mentally unstable, in the middle of a dangerous play, still in love with that fucking terrorist. Because she would never want him the way she wanted Brody. His mind churned through all of their failed moments, and he pressed his lips together, trying to ignore the shame that was becoming a constant presence in his jaw. He looked down, away from her, the only way he could keep his composure. She sighed heavily, running a hand through her hair. He still couldn’t make himself look at her face, so he stared somewhere beyond her right ear, her hair a blurry blonde veil concealing her face.

“Look, I-” she sighed. “I’m glad you’ve got my back, and…” His eyes flickered up to hers, but he made no other movement, his spine so straight he felt it in his eye sockets. “… you came to see me in the hospital when I was … _not_ in a good place, and… it meant a lot.” She nodded at her own words, and it shocked him to see her eyes had glassed over. One thing Carrie was not, was a good actor. It was why Saul had her committed, for fuck’s sakes, because he couldn’t trust her not to blow it on her own. And she had fucking done it.

He watched her for a few seconds, looking for the earnestness in her expression, trying to memorize the words she had said, the way she had said them, that look of defeat and admiration and even thanks. His heart and stomach were starting the war for space in his throat. 

“What you put yourself through…” That warmth surged through him as his heart won, as he felt way too many emotions for a man with his training. “It was fucking incredible.” His voice dropped as he admitted it. Carrie scoffed at him, lifting her eyebrows in disbelief, unable to keep his gaze any longer.

“Yeah, well, I’ve got a yoga class that starts in 11 minutes-“ She gave him a small smile, but it was hollow, like she just wanted to get rid of him. She opened her car door and he stepped back, letting her slip inside, and then helping her press the door closed. He told himself her dismissal wasn’t the reason his chest felt heavy. As she drove out of the garage, he headed to his own vehicle, intent to follow.

…

Quinn knocked lightly on the sliding glass doors. He could see through them to the kitchen, but after Carrie had hung up on Saul, she had gone upstairs. It had been an unpleasant conversation to overhear, Saul’s frustration at Carrie’s lingering Brody fixation, reprimanding her for her fool’s errand. It had been close - too close. He felt a light adrenaline rush when he thought about it - if her tag had stepped into that studio and found her missing. 

He pulled a pocket knife from his pants and easily used the blade to unlatch the outside door. He opened it just enough to squeeze through and silently shut the door again after him. The house was entirely silent and he realized that it probably wasn’t a smart idea, breaking in like this. This was what phones were for. But he hadn’t really thought. He had pulled his earbuds out, paused the recorder, and stepped from his truck, deftly moving in the darkness through the surrounding yards until he had reached hers.

“Carrie?” he called out quietly, staying still in the back entryway. There was a long pause until he heard the floorboards creak upstairs. Her head poked around the top of the landing, blinking at him in surprise. She was in a sleeveless shirt and loose bottoms, and his mouth filled. 

“Quinn? What are you- _how_ did you-“ 

He gestured to the sliding doors. “You need a better lock on those.” 

She ignored this. “What’s wrong? Is the surveillance back? Have they made you?”

He didn’t answer her questions, and it didn’t even seem like she expected him to. They both knew he wouldn’t walk straight into her house if Javadi’s agents were back outside. He removed his convenient excuse from his pocket, a small piece of electronic circuitry. “One of the mic’s is getting interference. Just gotta replace it.”

“Uh, okay, sure. Whatever.” She waved her hand at him in dismissal and disappeared back up the stairs. He sighed, silently walking through the kitchen and following her up to the second floor. 

“Carrie?” he called again, feeling suddenly embarrassed, as if he had never been alone with a woman before. He had never been alone with _Carrie_ before, not in a domestic environment, and his heart, gut, and balls all knew it. “It’s the one up here in the hall.”

“Okay,” she replied, a hint of annoyance in her voice. “I don’t need a play-by-play.”

“Christ,” Quinn muttered, kneeling by the power socket at the front of the hall, between her bedroom and the guest bath. He had direct line of sight into her bedroom and he paused in his crouch, watching as Carrie smoothed the blankets on the bed. _Voyeur_. His stomach gave a little guilty flip-flop, but he didn’t look away, watching her bare arms, the curve of her shoulder blades around the back of her sleeveless shirt. Her hand came to the small of her back, lifting up the thin hem of material as she carelessly scratched her spine. His hands had clenched, saliva filling the gap behind his bottom teeth, and he pulled his gaze away, back to his excuse. He removed the wall cover and peeled the bug off the inside case, dropping the defunct microchip into his breast pocket. He was securing the cover back on when he heard Carrie’s bare feet cross the carpet to stand next to him. He glanced over at her legs, then back at his work.

“Is that the only one?” she asked.

“Yeah.” 

They both watched him slowly replace the screws. 

“I know,” she said suddenly, stepping closer. He could lean in and his face would meet her knees. He could lean up and nudge his face between her legs, tip her onto her back, push his weight onto her. His painful thoughts made every inch of him alert - just not for what he wanted. He should’ve expected what was coming. 

“Know what?” he asked absently, starting to stand, pushing himself up with one hand on his knee. She looked unimpressed, her hands defiant at her hips, regarding him with that obstinate eye-brow lift. 

“What you are.”

Quinn looked at her for a long second, his lips pursing together as he pushed the blade on his knife back into its handle. It snapped back louder than he had intended. Carrie’s fingers weren’t around his throat, a gun wasn’t pointed at his chest, he still had all limbs and a mostly full set of teeth, so Saul hadn’t _really_ told her - not everything. “And what’s that?” he replied quietly, taking another step, really only a half-step until he could feel the heat off her. She had to tilt her head back to look at him and he could watch the pulse pound in her throat. His hands were steady at his sides, his heart a light tap in his jaw, trying to ignore that easy view down the front of her loose top. 

“One of Dar Adal’s.” She didn’t quite say it like an insult, but it was close enough. Was that what he was? Even still? _One of Dar Adal’s._ The thought made him nauseous. It made that familiar rage suddenly flare behind his temples. 

“Not any fucking more.” 

Her eyes flickered over his face, and he didn’t try to hide the anger. Now he could feel it - that pulse in his stomach - angry, heavy, impatient. _Is that what she thought of him now? Just one of his. A trained monkey with a lead finger._ He watched for the disgust to form on her face, but it never happened. Her wide eyes were just curious, almost relaxed, as if she understood him more now. That want built in his throat until it fell through his chest, his gut, his groin. She got him every single time - he’s not sure she knew it.

Carrie’s hair was soft when he lifted a hand to it, lightly twisting an end around his forefinger. She had stepped closer, the front of her chest pressing lightly against his shirt, her bare feet between his boots. He could smell her - light soap, tea, laundry - and he let his palm join his fingers, running back through her hair and gripping the roots of it at the nape of her neck, lightly forcing her head up to look at him. 

“Who told you?” He hadn’t intended to whisper, but his voice caught in his lungs and then there it was, practically visible between them. He didn’t need to ask - he already knew, there was only one person that could’ve told her. 

“Saul. Last night.”

“I’m not an analyst.” It was nearly hilarious. Of course he wasn’t a fucking analyst, she had known it from the very start, from the second she had laid skeptical eyes on him. He had SPECIAL OPS practically branded on his forehead. She braced herself as his fingers tightened in her hair, the movement also tilting her pelvis forward, his stomach thick against hers, his belt buckle pressing through her thin polyester blend. Her hands had nowhere to go but up, so she gripped onto the edges of his open collar, tugging him even further against her. She could feel him now - it wasn’t just the belt. 

He was a liar, a trained assassin, a black operative - supposed to be watching her ass safely from outside, not up here in her darkened hallway, his hands in her hair and hers in his shirt. He smelled like car leather and coffee and the heat of the day, so strong she could taste it in the back of her throat. But he looked tired, worn, a bit less snarky, a bit more defeated. 

She remembered the hospital. It was harder to rationalize her actions, what she had said to him, how he kept coming back even after she had her inevitable series of fantastic meltdowns. 

_He was just leaving._

It was easier to rationalize his hands on her - his tongue and mouth and teeth. It was written all over her face, and when he _finally_ brought her head up, her feet lifted to her tiptoes. She clung to his shirt as his mouth met hers, her lips opening under his, that slickness of his tongue that she hadn’t felt in months.The rough edge to the kiss that wasn’t desperate, but painful, as if it was supposed to mean something more. Maybe it did.

She leaned into him, bringing one hand from his shirt to around his shoulder, hooking an elbow on his neck. He took this as a go-ahead, as if he could even think of anything else. As if every dirty hole he had crawled into the last 20 years suddenly didn’t matter. He wanted her hands in his hair, arms around his waist, bare breasts in his face. The kiss grew suddenly urgent, and his hands tightened and moved, snapping her against the wall at her back. She inhaled sharply on his mouth, little bright spots in her eyes as the sensitive part of her skull smacked into the hard surface. It was almost suffocating, but she couldn’t let him stop, the hand on his shirt moving blindly to find the buttons, trying to pull them apart. He could fuck her against the wall, she wouldn’t care. She’d prefer it. 

Sex always made everything better. 

She could forget about _him_.

Quinn felt her fumbling with his clothes, her tongue still in his mouth, the back of his neck stinging from where her fingernails had raked it raw. Every part of him hurt - his cheeks, his throat, his biceps, that line of racing blood that circled his thighs and ass and groin. 

“ _Carrie_ …” He exhaled shakily, and her mouth twisted up against his, a light laugh with warm breath. Her hands had found the planes of his chest, her fingers dragging down across his stomach before she gripped the front of his belt. He shifted his weight, searching for purchase on her clothing, trying to drag it up her torso, but she was squirming, keeping him from exposing the underside of her breast. It felt like forever, until she abandoned his belt and lifted her arms up, and her shirt came free. 

Skin on skin, he almost gave in right there. Her breasts were crushed between them, her lips meeting his again, that desperation back. He was having the short, obscure thought that he was still wearing his jacket, when a car alarm went loudly off outside. Carrie froze, but he reacted, his hand pushing on her bare shoulder, slamming her near-violently to the floor. His other palm slapped itself over her mouth, keeping her cry of surprise muffled behind his fingers. He held his breath as they waited, his ears so sharp they nearly bled, willing his pulse to drop back down. 

The alarm beeped once more before going silent and he heard the faint slam of a front door across the street. A dog barked, someone laughed, the trees creaked, Carrie swallowed. “I should go,” Quinn said after a long while. She didn’t reply, but she kept his brief gaze as he unwrapped his fingers from her skin, forcing himself to stand, not to look at her half-nakedness. He cleared his throat as he rebuttoned his shirt, shoving the front of it down into his pants, shifting with that discomfort. He glanced away, giving her a bit of privacy as she slipped her tank back over her head, letting it settle. He lowered a hand, not sure she’d take it, but her fingers lifted to his and he pulled her up in one smooth tug. 

He waited a second, to see if she’d argue, maybe ask him to stay. _Please ask him to stay._ Forget the watch, the job, the hospital, the terrorist - it wouldn’t even fucking matter, if she reined him back in and they crossed that threshold. But she didn’t ask him - she delicately traced the edges of her mouth with her fingertips, wiping his spit off her lips and gave him a settled sigh. Her eyes were lidded, and he tried to ignore his palms burning, his dick pounding, the tops of his shoulders twitching. She gave him a sad sort of smile, a feeble shrug, an _it wouldn’t have worked out anyway_ , and he didn’t need anything else, so he turned and headed back down the stairs.

…

 

_Plucking his toenails out with a pair of pliers._

_Chewing sand._

_Max’s blank stare._

Quinn groaned, rubbing his eyelids with his forefinger and thumb as he readjusted himself in his seat. It had been 30 minutes - 20 of which Carrie had spent in the bathroom, if he was to judge by the solitary light still shining through the window, 15 of which he had spent sitting in the truck with a stubborn hard-on. 

_Nicholas Brody._

Fiddling with the magnification on the night-vision scope, he brought it up to one eye and did a quick survey of Carrie’s house. As his gaze passed the bathroom window, the light snapped off, as if she had known he was looking. How many times had he watched her like this, out in the dark like some fucking creeper in the night. He heaved a sigh, trying to will his nerves to relax, but his brain kept racing double time. He could still feel her - mouth, hair, breasts, tongue - and he brought the side of his knuckles to his lips to try and push those thoughts back down his throat, back to where they belonged at the pit of his groin. 

It was only to make sure she was alright. He had no other motive. Not one.

He dialled her burner before his common sense got the better of him, and waited. He watched the house for lights and movement, but nothing changed, and he was surprised when she answered after three rings.

“Yes?” she asked impatiently. 

“It’s Quinn,” he replied, as if that would make her less abrupt - it didn’t. Maybe she was pissed at him now, annoyed that he had taken advantage of her, maybe that she had let herself enjoy it. Had he stopped it, or had they both stopped it? But it was the neighbour who stopped it, when he had accidentally hit the alarm button on his remote start. 

“I know, is the surveillance back?”

He paused at her assumption - that he called her about business. Not about what had just transpired in her upstairs hall. “No,” he admitted after the second. He inhaled, as if to gather his courage - not to talk about her breasts in his hands or her fingers at his zipper - but to ask her an even more personal question.

“You okay?” He peered at her house, watching for any sort of sign, but there was nothing. He had no idea which window she stood at, if any at all. 

“Not really,” she replied softly. He leaned back into his seat, letting that reassurance wash over him. He wasn’t the only one left blue-balled and nervous, because there was only one place they could go now. And he wasn’t sure she’d ever let him… and he wasn’t even sure he’d ever let himself. He wanted her almost more than anything he’d ever wanted - but want was one thing, and need was another. He didn’t need her, and she sure as hell didn’t need him. 

He heard the light patter of her bare feet on floor. She was downstairs, probably in her kitchen. “Where are you?” she asked, abruptly changing topics, as if their communal silence settled the matter. 

“About a hundred yards away.” He thought that might reassure her, that she wasn’t alone and he would keep an eye out for her, but it clearly had the opposite effect. She gave a loud sigh in frustration, her feet pacing again. 

“I’m not sure I _like_ being watched over by you, Quinn.” 

His heart came to an abrupt, painful stop and he kept his relentless stare at the house, trying to erase the tingling behind his eyeballs. Because Carrie was obstinate and would never admit to wanting his help, but she was also honest, and had no problem telling him to get lost - that if he was outside, it was because it was his job, and nothing else. She probably regretted it - their brief moment of collective delusion where everything would suddenly be alright, if only for a few minutes of pleasure. That self-pity was back, churning his brain into grey mush, and he blinked a few quick times.

“I’m at a safe distance.” Far enough away that he couldn’t really watch her, not for any reason, yet close enough to still make her uncomfortable. Safe enough that he couldn’t take another trip through her house, up into her bedroom where they would make more mistakes, break other internal fraternization rules. 

“Anyway,” Carrie sighed, “according to Saul, you’re wasting your time. I blew it.” 

He could barely get his lips to move, and his voice came out a croak. “We don’t know that.” 

“You were there. _Did_ I get made?”

“I… dunno,” he replied, his brain now on overdrive, thinking about Brody and Brody’s daughter, and Carrie’s unexplainable loyalty to them.

“It was always a fucking long shot,” Carrie sighed. He didn’t say anything, because she had said everything. It could very well not have even happened - he could have fucked her in the god damn driveway and she would still only ever want to talk about Brody. She took his silence as agreement, and hung up with only a quick, “Night, Quinn.” 

He threw his phone back onto the seat, and turned the volume up on the audio lines he had feeding through the tablet, hearing Carrie’s soft movements go back up the stairs. But after that it was too silent, five minutes without a footstep, a sigh, a flick of a switch or close of a door. His breast pocket felt heavy, and he reached a hand up to check it, where he had stashed the malfunctioning audio microchip. But fuck him, he pulled two chips out of his shirt - the one he had taken out of the power socket, and the one he had meant to replace it with. 

He had no ears upstairs. He reached immediately for his scope.


	15. Still Positive

**Still Positive**

Her house looked different in the daylight. Unassuming - no Iranian agents lurking, no panicked seconds, no tragic mistakes. Just a mother fucking map on the wall, with Brody’s face plastered all over it. Quinn hadn’t seen it the night before, too distracted by the very object he was supposed to be watching. 

The irony was practically unbearable.

“I know what you’re thinking,” Carrie said, having the gall to sound just a bit embarrassed.

“No, you don’t,” he replied, too quickly, not even trying to disguise it. There was not a chance in hell that they were going to have this conversation, the morning after he had fucked up and it all went to shit. Maybe Carrie’s abduction was part of the play, but it didn’t make him feel any less uneasy about it, especially now that he was back in her living room. 

He was _not_ talking about Brody today. Not another god damn word about the man for the rest of his life. 

He realized he was still standing stiffly, hands awkwardly hanging at his sides, eyes quickly scanning Carrie’s DIY wallpaper job. So he turned to face her, and she looked back up at him glumly. She knew it was crazy - that she was acting crazy - why did she even feel the need to explain herself to _Quinn_ , of all people. Not after what had almost happened between them. Her heart was pounding up in her throat and she nervously clutched onto the USB he had given her. She didn’t want him to think she was still sick - she _wasn’t_. She was better - she was clear and sharp and so _on_ that she could feel it in her toes. Quinn’s face was somewhere between cold and reassuring, and part of her was relieved that he didn’t think any less of her. She had briefly thought that he might pin her down and call the MCH orderlies to come round her up, lock her back in room 226.

_He wouldn’t do that to you._

This was Quinn, standing in front of her, looking both out of place and right at home in her living room, almost like he and his dark suit belonged there. He matched her fucking decor: sharp, neutral, dark. He always levelled her with his strong brow.

“Brody is America’s most wanted man,” he said, as if trying to convince only her, having already accepted it as fact for himself. “You’re looking for possible sightings of him because it’s your _job_.” He gave her what he hoped was a meaningful look, a slight nod of the head. _They were not discussing this. Not unless she wanted his brains blown all over her carefully cropped newspaper clippings._ She gave him a brief grimace that bordered on a smile of relief, her thankful glance giving him everything he needed. He blinked in response, reaching into his pocket and pulling out a cellphone.

“New burner phone,” he explained, his voice quiet again. “Give me your old one.” She leaned over and they exchanged phones. His gaze was so heavy and blue she knew that if she kept looking, she wouldn’t be able to break away. 

“Alright, let’s go,” she said, turning to ignore the tension between them, all the unsaid words. She had no excuse for her nighttime behaviour, and she didn’t want to hear his, so it was a relief when he didn’t have any. Quinn watched her lean over to grab her purse, easily stepping into line behind her as they exited back through the sliding doors. He chanced another glance at the Brody map, but found it no longer bothered him. Carrie was there, three feet in front of him, with most of her common sense seemingly intact, while Brody was who-the-fuck-cared. Quinn nearly smiled as he stepped onto the back veranda, shutting the door after them, once again acutely aware of how domestic it felt. 

She glanced over her shoulder as she unhooked the back gate that ran the length of the townhouse row. “Where’d you park?”

“Just around the corner.” He took the iron gateway she held for him and closed it silently after he passed through. She walked quickly, in that determined way he had grown to enjoy, arms and hair swinging from side to side. He let himself watch her, his mind quieting after the constant whirring of high-alert over the last 24 hours. He had worried that she would blame him for the missing audio feed, but she didn’t even know. How could she know? Even being stripped naked and hauled blindly out of her house at midnight hadn’t fazed her. His head felt fuzzy, his chest warm in an unfamiliar way. It was the first time in a long time that Quinn felt pride, and it wasn’t even for himself. 

He unlocked the Durango doors as she approached them and she sent him a smile of thanks over her shoulder before stepping up and into the vehicle. He hurried to the driver’s side, climbing into his own seat. It wasn’t very far to the coffee house, but it would pay to be early, and she gave him a quick nod as the truck pulled away from the curb. They drove in comfortable silence, but Carrie’s hands wouldn’t stop clenching, so he reached out and placed his palm over hers. He had only meant it as a quick reassurance, but her fingers squeezed back against his and she looked at him with a slight smile, a gentle tilt of the head. 

He pulled alongside the strip mall’s parking lot, where he had direct view of Raffi’s front entrance. Carrie pulled her hand away, unbuckling her seatbelt before he had even shoved the gear shift into park. She was already opening her door, peering through the windshield for signs of Javadi. 

“Good luck,” Quinn said, his voice a bit too loud - compensating for the ten minutes of silence. 

“Thanks,” Carrie sighed, their short reprieve already over, her mind back on the objective, fitting her earpiece beneath her hair. 

“Sit in the window so I can see you.” He looked at her, just as a reminder. That there was no way in hell he would let her slip away twice - not on his watch. She gave a nod in return, not yet out of the truck, but still about to shut the door. He wasn’t exactly sure what he expected in her response - _okay, Honey. Just let me round up the terrorist, and I’ll be back soon._

“Right.”

…

The stench of fresh death was nearly overwhelming. Javadi’s back was to him, kneeling over a body that was drenched in blood and bile, his hand holding a dripping object as he held his arms up in smug surrender. Quinn watched uneasily as Javadi glanced back at him, his finger itching near the gun’s trigger.

“Someone talk to me!” Saul barked in his ear. Javadi, as if hearing Saul himself, lowered the weapon to the floor. Quinn took a double-take at the broken bottle, the brutality of it surprising him, though he had often been at the helm of much worse. He chanced a quick glance at Carrie, who was staring at Javadi in horror, her own gun pointed at him from her different position. Neither of them spoke, although Quinn wasn’t sure if there was anything to even say, not in this white room with blood all over its bright walls. 

“Now I’m ready to see Saul,” Javadi said impassively, waiting for whatever was to come. 

There was a split second before Quinn heard the strangest sound. A little cough that was unmistakeable. And then a baby’s cry of neglect. Fuck him, there was a child here somewhere - a child whose mother was lying dead in the entranceway, a bullet through her skull. He peered around the kitchen, but Carrie was already backing up, her eyes wild, tortured.

“Oh, Jesus,” she breathed, looking at him for direction, as if she had no idea what to do now. Between them, Quinn was the father, but he was no parent. They stared at each other in horror, and he could feel his stomach starting to pound with disgust, that comforting anger that had lately taken a backseat to shame. Carrie shrugged at him helplessly, her hands still wrapped around the base of her - _his_ \- gun, but he had no fucking idea what to do now. Besides walk over and curb-stomp Javadi into the floor, that is. He swallowed, glancing back at the man as Saul swore impatiently in his ear.

“One of you tell me _please_ what the _fuck_ is happening,” he placated. Quinn tore his eyes from Carrie as he stepped toward Javadi, every nerve in his body practically vibrating with alarm. 

“He… shot his daughter-in-law in the head and then he, uh…” Quinn peered around Javadi at the dead woman he was straddling. Her throat had been utterly destroyed with the bottle’s sharp edge. His mouth tightened with nausea - dead children in pools of their own blood - but he swallowed the vomit back, reaching down to grab Javadi by the collar. “There’s two fatalities and a lot of blood,” he finished as he pulled Javadi to his feet. The man came up easily, but that made Quinn even more unsettled. 

“Who’s the second fatality?” Saul asked, his voice a bit strangled, as if he didn’t need to know the answer, because he already had it. Quinn glanced at the woman again: middle-aged, soft, in a grandmotherly way, bleeding out in her pristine living room. He shoved Javadi against the nearest wall, his bloody hands smearing red streaks on the white paint, and started to pat him down. 

“Hold on,” Quinn muttered tersely, the gun still cocked in Javadi’s direction, as his slid his palm down the man’s thin legs and along the front of his bloody shirt. He felt the wetness of the woman’s blood on his own palms, but the effect of it didn’t register, not when he spun Javadi around and had to look him in the eye. Nothing but pure, hot rage. What he would give to kill this man right here - Carrie’s abductor, CIA bombing mastermind - the one who killed that woman by a death very few deserved. He dug the barrel of his gun into Javadi’s chest. “Who’s she?” he asked quietly, barely keeping the spit from leaving his mouth, jerking his head in the woman’s direction. 

Javadi lightly blinked, barely had any emotion cross his face, except maybe satisfaction. _Cocky bastard_. “Tell Saul it’s my ex-wife… _Fariba_ ,” he said softly, his breath stinking of smoke and sweat. His eyes made no move, and Quinn held them, unable to look away, his jaw clenching as he tried to keep every muscle in his hand under control. 

“He took a bottle to her neck,” he finally said, his voice a sharp inhale. “He killed her with a _fucking bottle_.” He stared at Javadi, not hearing Carrie behind him, not hearing Saul in his ear, nor the strong beat of his angry pulse in the back of his teeth. He would kill this man at the end of his gun - but not with that easy weapon - no, he would gut Javadi with the very glass he had used to kill the woman that he had once married. How could he have loved this woman, only to do this to her, leaving her open and defiled in her own home. He couldn’t have. 

Saul was babbling in his ear, but Quinn barely paid any attention. “It’s a fucking bloodbath, Saul.”

“You gotta get him out of there as fast as possible,” Saul said abruptly, his voice sharp in Quinn’s ear, “and get the murder weapon. You understand?”

Military training snapped him out of the trance - just a command from a superior, and his spine immediately straightened, his whole body at attention. Quinn blinked, his gaze flickering to where Fariba lay, the broken bottle next to the growing pool of blood and bodily fluids. 

“Jesus _fucking_ Christ.”

“Do you understand?” Saul pressed, as if he was stupid. 

Quinn glared at Javadi, knowing exactly what Saul was asking of him. Javadi would get away with it, he wouldn’t be tried for this double-murder, because instead he was being recruited by the C.I.A. “Yeah, I understand,” Quinn replied after another second. Carrie was moving behind him, even as Saul barked further directions. He barely heard the baby start to scream again, but he followed Javadi’s gaze as Carrie brought the child to its crib. 

…

“For _fuck’s_ sakes, Quinn,” Carrie said, wincing as she walked in on him. He had held it in the last 30 minutes, from the moment he had smelled that familiar coppery reek of blood in the white kitchen, through his confrontation with Javadi and the hellish, tense ride back to the safe-house, all with Fariba’s blood staining his own hands and down the front of his shirt and jacket. The coffee he had sucked back had only made it worse, and so after they left Saul and Javadi in the interrogation room, he had walked to the side exit and puked as silently as he could into the bushes over the railing. 

“I’m fine, I’m _fine_ ,” he snapped, shoving her off, where her hand had come to his elbow. 

“Quinn, you are _not_ fine,” she replied impatiently, now placing her palm on his back, rubbing as he hung over the railing, his stomach empty, but his pride not quite catching up. He felt the tips of his ears burning - this new weakness, and she had caught him. 

“I need a fucking shower,” he muttered, righting himself so her hand fell off, going back to her side. She looked up at him, worry furrowing her eyebrows, standing way too close, considering he probably reeked. “I’ve got…” He raised his hands, red staining his wrists and knuckles, down his shirtsleeves, not needing to explain anything. Carrie gave him a once-over, clearly feeling sorry for his miserable ass. 

“You should go home,” Carrie said quietly, not stepping away. “Get cleaned up, we’ll be fine here for a bit-“

“No, I _told_ you-“

“Yeah, yeah, you’re _fine_. Got it.” She put defiant hands on her hips, not giving up. “I’ll drive you - Saul is busy rearranging Javadi’s face anyway.” She gave a small tiff of humour, tossing her head in the other direction, and he tried to give a tight smile in return - to appreciate her effort - but his lips were stuck to his teeth.

“Carrie…” 

“Cut the shit. You don’t have a choice.” She grabbed his arm with surprising strength, giving him a shove in the direction of the car. “Get in, I’ll let Max know where we’re going.”

Quinn didn’t argue, rinsing his mouth out with the rest of his coffee, spitting that too into the bushes before heading to the car, unable to think of anything but getting out of his clothes and into the shower. The murder weapons were wrapped up in a plastic bag, tucked into his inside jacket pocket, where it felt like a lead weight with each step. Those women, lying dead on the floor. _That kid, still a boy, sprawled out on the dark floor, dead eyes open._

The house he was living in was not far away - not even a five minute drive - which they spent in somber silence. Carrie stared at the house as he directed her to pull up alongside the curb. “You live _here_?” she gawked, glancing around the historic neighbourhood. 

“Yeah.” He was already on his way out of the car, but Carrie had pulled the keys from the ignition, and was starting to follow him. He gritted his teeth, knowing that she wanted to see the inside - that fucking Virgil had probably reported to her every little detail of his pathetic living habits. She had probably seen the photos - his old apartment, more desperate than this house. 

“I just thought… ” she faded off as he paused by the front door. Her eyes flickered between him and the entranceway, her curiosity so obvious it would’ve been funny, on a different day, in a different situation. He gave a short huff as he unlocked the door, pushing it open and glancing back at Carrie. He held out his hand, gesturing her to just go in and get it over with. She paused, gave her head a half-shake and her mouth a half-smile. “I should get back.”

“Sure.” He glanced away, expecting her to leave, his hands lifting to tug at his jacket, trying to remove it. But she wasn’t moving, still framed in the open door. He didn’t wait for her to stay - or even leave - turning the corner and heading down the hall, intent on his shoddy bathroom, where the shower often ran too hot. It was nearly empty - shaving kit, soap, toothbrush. Quinn kicked his shoes off, lining them neatly against the wall as he finally shook his arms free of his jacket, letting it land on the floor with a soft thump, the bagged weapon rolling out of his inside pocket. The sharp glass had ripped through the plastic and it left a little pool of blood on his retro-tiled floor. 

His arms felt heavy as he reached for the buttons on his stained shirt, glancing up with a jolt of surprise when he felt Carrie appear in the doorway before him. His heart skipped a beat as his mouth went dry. “Jesus, _Carrie_!” he complained, looking away from where she leaned against the doorway, hands in her pants pockets, watching him undress. “What are you still doing here?” he sighed after a moment’s silence, tugging his shirt off and tossing it in the corner, leaving it a crumpled mess. His hands went to his belt, which he thought she’d take as a sign to get out, but she didn’t even blink. Her head tilted like she was some curious little animal, following him home. 

The need to get out of his clothes was desperate, and he felt the anxiety rise in his chest, like cotton in his mouth.

“Quinn. Should I-“ she started, but he couldn’t let her finish. He couldn’t stand to let her even think it, let alone say it. 

“I’m fucking _fantastic_ , Carrie,” Quinn interrupted, not able to stand that doe-eyed look of concern she gave him. He glared at her as he defiantly kicked his pants off, leaving him just in socks and boxer briefs. He felt decidedly more naked than he actually was. She recoiled, her shoulders rising and eyes widening with defence, and he sighed, scrubbing his palm over his face, the day starting to set into his bones, that smell of Fariba’s blood burning his nostrils. They stared at each other for a moment, each unwilling to relent, until she took the few steps forward, closing the gap between them. Slowly, she touched his ribs and the shock of her cold hands went straight up to the back of his teeth. Her fingertips ran up the insides of his arms until she could lean up and wrap her arms around his neck. 

His first instinct was to pull back - his hands were stained in red - but the blood was dry by then and he felt himself sag, barely holding his own weight up. He would never be able to say no to her, even under the guise of his own guilt. Her now-familiar hands stroked the back of his hair and he ran his knuckles lazily down her spine, turning his face to press his nose against her neck. She was trembling and he tightened his hands on her, exhaling into her skin.

“Carrie…”

“No,” was her reply, pulling back only the inch it took to let him lean in again and kiss her. It was immediately desperate. It was strange that he was used to kissing her, the jump of her pulse beneath his palm, that rough spot on her bottom lip where she chewed it, the curve of her cheekbone beneath the tip of his nose. She tasted like stale coffee, but sweet from the sugar. There was never a question. His mouth dropped to her neck as she scrambled out of her khaki jacket, taking the moment to find his shoulders again, her fingertips digging so hard into his back it was if she was trying to reach through his chest. She was slowly moving backwards, and Quinn realized that he was in fact pushing her down the hall, past all the painfully empty rooms, into one specifically empty room. 

He had bought sheets - white - that he habitually bleached every week. His sleeping roll sat in a tight wrap in the corner, neglected, now that a series of blue blankets covered his bed. Carrie didn’t even glance at the bare space, stepping back, their mouths separating with a loud smack, her hands quickly undoing her blouse. He reached to help her, but she pulled out of reach, watching him, her gaze heavy. Something unpleasant tugged at his gut, but he had to ignore it. He had no other alternative, the blood rushing in his ears as her clothes dropped to the floor, leaving her in plain white cotton. 

She turned her arms, reaching behind her to unclasp her bra, and the fabric went loose against her pale skin. It fell to the floor, and Quinn watched her tuck her thumbs into the waistband of her practical underwear. She had never struck him as a practical person. If she had anticipated this, would she have worn something else? Black? Lace? Things he had seen her wear for Brody- 

It was a dangerous thought, but it never took hold. He stood there in his own bedroom, with Carrie standing before him, feeling his pulse in every inch of his body. He lifted his hands to his hips and rolled the last remains of his clothes down his legs, something deep in his chest wanting nothing more than to just be completely honest. The words bubbled in the back of his throat, but never surfaced. 

They watched each other, Carrie’s eyes dropping past his chest, following the quiver of his stomach, the scar over his hip - left over from an unexpected Serbian knife-fight in 06. Her hair seemed strangely yellow against the white of her chest, the tips of her breasts. Her belly curved gently and she ran a hand over it as if nervous - self-conscious - and he felt the painful pull in his scrotum, the want so thick that the twitch of his stomach drew her eyes. Her gaze jumped back up to his as he stepped forward, smoothing his palm over her cheek, finding the crook of her jaw with his index finger. Up this close, he could see the age, the years of stress on her face. He could smell her skin - musty but clean. He could feel the space between her legs as he used his other hand to press his palm into her tailbone, pulling her tightly against him. 

What had meant to be gentle quickly turned sharp. When her tongue met his, her teeth bit, her nails dug into where they had found the skin of his back, dragging painfully down his spine until she dug them into the muscle in his ass. Everything in his brain fired at once. He pushed her backward, her arms flinging from him as she fell onto his bed, her back hitting the cheap covers. She lifted up even as he reached down, her hands running through his short hair as her lips met his again eagerly. He shifted his weight, putting one knee on the edge of the mattress, then the other as she scooted backward, her knees separating, one of her heels hooking behind one of his thighs. 

The skin of her throat felt unbearable against his cheek as he pushed his face down her neck, along the top of her chest. He couldn’t stop to wonder. Why was she letting him do this, let him lay his red hands on her. He didn’t care anymore. She needed him - they could erase the horror of the afternoon, forget Fariba’s crumpled body, Javadi’s smug face, Saul’s tortured words. 

Carrie grabbed the roots of his hair before his mouth could get any further than her navel. It sent little stars of pain behind his eyeballs and he jerked forward, his fingers reaching for her arm as she impatiently kissed him again. He pulled back slightly and then easily grabbed her around the stomach, his arm wrapping around her slim hips as he snapped her onto her front, lifting her up against him, her knees pressing deep against the single pillow. She scrambled for purchase on the wall in front of them, her palms resting on the flat surface, pushing her shoulders back into the jumping pulse at the center of his chest. 

She was panting loudly, squirming against him as he leveraged her with one hand, his palm covering one half of her breast, the other dropping between her legs, bracing her as she jumped under his touch. Her body easily warmed to him, but it wasn’t as reassuring as he thought it would be. As it should have been. Maybe she was breathing out his name - he couldn’t tell.


	16. Gerontion

**Gerontion**

Sex had meant a lot of different things to him with a lot of different women. Sara had been his foster-sister, two years older, both naive, yet somehow so much more mature than him. He barely remembered it, only that it had been down by the ravine, twice a week for the summer between seventh and eighth grade, when he was just curious. It had been curiosity, adrenaline, pride. Marie was his high school girlfriend, a transplant French-Canadian that took a liking to his quiet 15 year old self. He had been the tallest boy in his grade, and she had the blackest eyes he had ever seen. It had been arrogant, possessive, overconfident. She had gotten an abortion two weeks before he had left. And then it had all been a blur; a few names he still remembered: Anastasia, Emily, Astrid. Until Julia, when he had somehow been in the same place for more than a month, not even realizing he couldn’t stand to be there more than one second, until it was too late.

And this woman next to him, blonde hair fanned across his chest. It had been pain, desperation, more emotion than he’s sure he’d ever felt.

Carrie didn’t make the same sounds. He had never forgotten the way Brody had fucked her, the violent pants from her mouth, her high-pitched whine, the hitch of her orgasm. Maybe she had been manic with the marine, but she was needy with him. Her fingernails had dragged painful lines down his neck and shoulders, and his teeth had sunk into her skin in retaliation. Her hips had rolled against him, her breath hot and wet on his face as her cheek had pressed against his.

He had let her orgasm once, pressed up against the wall, his body tightly pinning hers. She nearly took a chunk out of the plaster. And then again, her body splayed haphazardly along the diagonal line of the mattress, her knees up by his ears, her hands beneath her tailbone, struggling to keep her hips lifted with his frantic pace. The sunlight coming in the high windows had patterned her pale breasts with bright yellow, and he had nearly fallen on her, the warmth in his chest suddenly unbearable. He could still feel the burning exhaustion in his upper thighs, the bottoming out of his gut.

Her fingers trailed along the edge of his ear and he opened his eyes, staring at the stuccoed ceiling. He turned his head, expecting to see her looking back at him, but he just caught a face-full of her hair as she pushed herself up, off the bed. Quinn watched her walk across the room, disappearing around the corner, no longer conscious of her nakedness.

The shower turned on. He ran his palm over his face, scrubbing at the leftover trails of her saliva as he pushed his body up, feeling everything everywhere. There were wet spots on his crumbled sheets, and he felt a wave of uneasiness, glancing to the doorway, as if expecting Carrie to be there, even though he could hear the pattern of water from the bathroom. Had they used each other, or had she just used him?

But he hadn’t used her. He had wanted her for what seemed like his entire life - wanted her so badly it left a gaping hole in the space between his ribs, a hole that merely fucking her had not filled. Maybe it was her idea of comforting him, not understanding what he wanted, not knowing any other way. He had forgotten, briefly, about Javadi and Fariba, and the broken bottle of plum wine. He’s not sure he felt worse, but he didn’t feel better. Not when he lifted his hands up and saw the backs of his wrists still stained in someone else’s blood. He needed to get rid of it.

The water shut off just as he entered the bathroom. His pile of soiled clothes was still in the corner, and Carrie was stepping out of the shower, her hair tied back with an elastic he didn’t know he had. She glanced around for a body towel, but he had only one - it was clean, at least. He handed it to her, watching as she wiped the water off, gazing down at her hips, that small swell of her stomach. Something about it bothered him a little, reminded him of someone else.

She had annoyed eyebrows raised at him when he lifted his gaze to her face. She tied the towel around her torso, hiding the shape of her, the apex of her thighs that he felt himself drawn to. “Didn’t you get enough of an eyeful before?” she asked, lightly sarcastic, but also in that playful way she hardly used. Not just with anyone. A small smile tugged at the corners of her mouth and he sighed, relenting, moving to pass her, yearning for the water, yet also - still - for her.

She took a slight step to block him and he paused, glancing down at her, her light eyes on his. “I’ll see you back at the house, okay?”

He nodded, once, and leaned in to kiss her, almost as if to see if she’d refuse him, even after what they had just done. She didn’t, but the kiss was soft, short, a goodbye. She hung up the towel before she left.

…

He was in shit. Dar had handed him the surveillance capture and Quinn had known it. How had he missed it? Was he getting slack? He hadn’t fucked up so badly since the Iraq War. But there his face was - looking directly at an unwitting camera, at the scene of a double homicide, _2:53 p.m._

Fara had said something when he stormed in, but he didn’t give the woman a second thought, intent on Saul, intent on this long line of colossal fuck-ups. But Carrie was outside the interrogation room - _of course she was_ \- and he felt that familiar hop, skip, and a jump of his heart, the flip-flop of his stomach, even though he had been buried to the hilt not 45 minutes ago.

She turned at his footsteps and gave a light raise of her eyebrows. “You missed the fireworks,” she said softly, voice quiet. “Javadi blew when he found out he had to go back.” Quinn took a quick glance in through the door’s window, Saul and Javadi at a standstill by the table inside. He didn’t give a fuck about Javadi anymore - the man could go back to Iran and rot there, for all he cared.

Quinn held up the photo Dar had given him, interrupting Carrie’s quiet words. She flinched at it, lifting shocked eyes to him. “Shit,” she said, staring at him, as if wanting to say more, but not sure what. Now he was on the record, and the Bethesda police would be up his ass in no time, wanting to pin the murder of two women on him, and he would deserve it - even if he hadn’t done it. His face must have given him away, because she wouldn’t stop looking at him like that - concerned. Large eyes, open mouth, blonde hair tucked behind her newly washed ears.

_So much for the sympathy lay, huh, Carrie._

He couldn’t let her keep that gaze, so he reached out and knocked impatiently on the wooden door. He didn’t look back at her, though she kept looking at him - he could feel it - that burning question that was practically visible between them.

_What the fuck now?_

Quinn licked his lips as the door opened and they waited for Saul. Would the older man know, was it obvious that something had changed, or were his hands too full with important shit - shit that wasn’t his operative’s pathetic sex lives, their overcomplicated rapport. He wanted to snap at Carrie to _stop fucking looking at him like that_ , but Saul barely blinked, only irritated at the interruption.

They had a hushed conversation in the back hall. So he would be stuck in the safehouse, left to his own miserable existence with Fara and Max, while Carrie glanced at him every few seconds to see if he would - what, he wasn’t sure. Explode? Shove Max’s head through his computer monitor? Grab her hand and throw her against the nearest table?

“Fine,” Quinn sighed, looking back down at the photo, ignoring the swell of saliva that was pooling under his tongue. “What do we do about this?”

“There’s a police captain in Bethesda who owes me,” Carrie offered, and he looked down at her, after painfully keeping his eyes off her for the last 30 seconds. “I could call him - at least get the photo off the wire.”

Saul said something in agreement with her, but Quinn’s eyes were stuck on her face. The lines on her cheeks, the shape of her eyes. His hands felt heavy at his sides, and his jaw clenched as he fought to keep them there - untrusting, not sure if they would lift up and stroke her hair, touch her face, draw the line down to the pulse in her throat. When they had been tangled up on his bed, he had thought that it would be enough - that once would be enough to satisfy him. But looking at her, he knew it would never be enough. He would always think of her now with her lips against his jaw, with her hair thrown along one side of her head, with her small hands on every single part of him.

She glanced up at him and he didn’t look away, not until Saul pushed the photo back into his hands.

…

He hadn’t done it. He hadn’t shot that child’s mother, taken a bottle to his grandmother’s neck. No, Quinn had done other countless things, worse things. Most of them he couldn’t even remember, all of them blurring into each other, a string of missions and blood and death.

He sat at the head of the table - Fariba’s table - and nearly cried. The detective hated him from the very beginning, and treated him like the worst sort of man - because he was. Quinn couldn’t deny it, he couldn’t deny any of it, so he nodded his head along with the questions. He had been prepared to confess - _sure, yeah, I did it_ \- cold, unfeeling, admit it and get out. But the detective wasn’t as willing, had pressed him for details, had made him feel shame like he had never felt before.

_“But, actually, I’m just trying to understand. This shit that you people do - this shit that we’re party to because we pay taxes. This… this shit!”_

The man had no idea. The wake of Javadi did not even scrape the surface. The detective was so blissfully ignorant of the horrors that went on in the name of national security. Quinn had never had to confess before - not to a priest, not to his long-dead parents, not to any sort of superior or officer. His life was confidential, his shit was unknown, his murders had been sanctioned.

He thought of that boy again, just one life, and his jaw clenched. His lips pursed as he felt the tightening of his face, the uncomfortable tearing at the corners of his eyes. The detective looked at him with utter contempt and Quinn couldn’t keep his gaze anymore, glancing down at the table in the deep shame, his chest heavy, his breath shallow.

It took him more than a second to do it. His mouth had gone dry, despair coating the back of his throat, his gaze trying to look anywhere - _everywhere_ \- but back at the detective. He had to swallow twice more before his voice would catch.

_Yes._

_Walther P22._

_No. That was with a bottle._

He held the other man’s gaze, as if pleading for him to simultaneously not believe his confession. _Please don’t believe he did this._ But the man was supposed to believe it - that was the whole point. The anguish on his face must’ve been interpreted as something - guilt, admission, a plea for redemption.

_You fucking people._

_Have you ever done anything but make things worse?_

Quinn wanted to yell. He wanted to grab the man’s weapon and shove it in his own mouth, pull the trigger and be put out of his misery like a god damn dog.

_No. He had never done anything but make things worse._

His parents had died in a car accident, coming to pick him up at soccer practice, after he had begged his mother for two months straight to join a team - the registration fees had been more money than they made in a week. He had been 6. He didn’t even remember their faces. He had been unruly as a child in foster homes, earning the constant shuffle from family to family, trying to see who could be broken easiest.

He sat in the kitchen for over 30 minutes, even after the police were finished with him, satisfied with his answers. He listened to them working quietly through the rest of the house, replaying every wrong thing he had ever done, every thought he had ever had. He thought about Julia, and about his son - the son he would never know, not after how he had left. He thought about every time he had prepared himself to quit the C.I.A. He thought about Carrie, about sleeping in the same bed as her - just sleeping - about coming back to a home they shared, food they bought, plans they made. About having _normal_ arguments, about money, or vacuuming, or whose turn it was to bring out the garbage - not about terrorists, or conspiracies, or coverups.

This would be the end, the final task, the last deed.

He quickly left the house, stepping back into the night, feeling slightly lighter than when he had entered. Carrie was leaning against her car and he stopped short, staring at her, his heart pounding at her unexpected presence. She had come for him - God, he didn’t want anything more right then. He just wanted to wrap his arms around her, feel her skin again, her hair, her legs, take her back into his bed and have her stay there. She must’ve known, had seen it on his face, had felt it in his back. Something had been going on, and she was there to help him - maybe not to make it better, but to offer herself as a companion who actually understood what the fuck they went through. She knew it - she _lived_ it.

He walked toward her, his face set intently, barely unable to wait the five seconds until he could touch her again.

“How’d it go?” she asked tiredly as he approached. Something in her voice made him slow, had him approach from the side instead of the front, leaving a safe two feet between them.

“They’re standing down.”

“So it went well?”

He nearly laughed, looking to her face from where he had glanced back at the house. “What do they say? Confession is good for the soul?”

She cocked her head, looking at him as if he had a few screws loose, but her body was relaxed, happy even, eager. “Only you didn’t do it,” she pointed out, her voice riffled in a chuckle.

“I know,” Quinn shrugged, glad she was there, even if they were at an arm’s length. There was surveillance around, after all. Who knew what was watching them. He looked at her evenly. “But it made me feel better.” He swallowed, the words on his tongue so earnest he would never say them to anyone else. “Wrong crime, right guy, I guess.” His gaze flickered around briefly before landing back on hers and she tilted her head to him, her lips outlined in the light from the streetlamp. “You know what else I’ve realized? Just how _through_ I am with… “ He looked around again, back to the house, the cars, the complete and utter clusterfuck of the day, “ _this_ … the C.I.A. I just do _not_ believe it anymore.”

Now she looked at him with a slight hint of betrayal, putting a hand to her hip, confused lines in her forehead. “Believe _what_?” she said, her voice lightly accusing, maybe hurt. But maybe he just liked to think that.

“That anything justifies the damage we do.” He felt that burn behind his eyes again as they glassed over. Carrie sighed, shaking her head, shaking her whole body, as if he was just some crackpot, as if she didn’t believe him. It wasn’t what he hoped she would do, it wasn’t what he wanted. But what he wanted was only a fucking fantasy, and the bitter taste of truth was filling his mouth.

“You can’t quit yet,” she said pointedly, her voice dropping off as if what she would say next was about to blow his mind. He couldn’t care less, and he silently waited for her to finish. He just wanted to get back to his empty house and drink the bottle of Maker’s Mark he had stashed next to the coffee pot. “Javadi’s out over the Atlantic, heading home, and he _told_ me something before he left - about the Langley bomber.”

Jesus Fucking Christ. Somebody was taking the piss out of him. It was like some great cosmic joke, that Carrie wouldn’t let it go - wouldn’t let the truth of Brody go.

“You mean _Brody_ ,” he interrupted, wanting to argue, but mostly just wanting to get off the ride and puke its contents out into the nearest garbage bin. He wanted to grab Carrie and shake her - shake her until she never mentioned Brody again, that she finally saw what he had done, how he had used her.

“No, that’s just it,” she said, adamant in her delusions. “It’s not him. And I can prove it now, but…” She looked at him, and he knew he was done for. That she was going to ask him, and he would give it - whatever it was. “I need your help.”

His mouth twisted in half a wry smile, trying not to roll his eyes as he gave a short scoff. There it was. _I need your help._ So she had come not to be with him, not to go home with him, not to offer any sort of comfort after what they had gone through. She had come to ask him for his help, because she knew he wouldn’t be able to say no. The day had confirmed that. He wanted her, but she just wanted his undying loyalty.

He pursed his lips, swallowed, looked everywhere he could to quiet the rage in the back of his throat. His face twitched, and he shifted his weight, thinking about Brody laughing at him, Brody’s head bobbling with impatience, Brody’s bugging eyes as he lied through every fucking tooth he had. Quinn had thought he had had Carrie - just for a minute, just for an afternoon - but Brody had never left her. Had she thought about him in his bed?

“Quinn?” she asked, watching his expression, his flickering eyes, the press of his tongue against the back of his teeth. She looked at him earnestly, as if unaware what she had just asked of him, oblivious that she had his cock in a vice-grip, tugging him by the balls. He had no choice.

“Sure, Carrie,” he replied softly, unable to completely veil the burning hot anger that was coursing through his arms, tingling his fingertips, “whatever you need.”

And he couldn’t stand the sight of her anymore, so he turned and left.


	17. A Red Wheelbarrow

**A Red Wheel Barrow**

The secondary ops room had been silent for the better part of 45 minutes. Quinn scratched at his cheek, chancing a glance over the laptop monitor to watch Carrie as she walked back across the room, heels clicking loudly in the quiet air, frowning down at a stack of papers she was shuffling through. She came to a stop under the solitary fluorescent light, but didn’t take her seat, instead spreading the pages out in front of her. Her hair glowed dully, despite the dark room, and Quinn forced himself to look back at his monitor, not wanting to think too long or too hard about running his fingers through it.

He leaned back in his chair, supporting his chin with the light pressure from his hand, fingers hiding any movement his mouth might want to make. Apparently they had reached some unspoken agreement to not talk about it - not that he _wanted_ to talk about it. Because it didn’t boil down to anything. Carrie had a long list of random sexual encounters, and he’d just attached his own ass to the very bottom of it. He liked to tell himself it didn’t bother him - _pfft, it didn’t mean a fucking thing. He’d needed her. They’d needed each other, to erase the contents of that kitchen. Nothing but a god damn courtesy - just a communal distraction._

Because it only took one whiff of Brody and she was back on the trail. Bloodhound. Beagle. A cute little dog who only had one intention - follow the tracks, and don’t worry about what was left behind, or even how to return to it. 

He leaned forward, shifting in his seat as he gave a heavy sigh. He’d been sitting on the latest file for the last five minutes, but hadn’t been able to bring it up, not sure his voice wouldn’t give away his pathetic thoughts. The chances of them getting any sort of lead from these files was next to nothing, and the blue monitor light was beginning to give him a headache. He brought his hand up to his chin, as if making sure his face was still attached to the rest of his skull, and finally made himself speak.

“Okay, here’s something.” He felt Carrie glance up, but he didn’t look away from the laptop. “Dr. Maximillian Aziz. Jordanian… was actually in the auditorium at the time the bomb went off.” 

“Ops or Intelligence?”

“Intelligence. Office of Transnational Issues.” 

“And what’s his connection to Leland Bennett?”

“He wrote a lengthy analysis of the firm’s hip-pocket clients-“ Quinn had to shift again, his back hurting from the very effort not to look at her. But then he looked up anyway, her impatient expression evident down to the very tips of her fingers, “Iran, Syria, Azerbaijan. This was two years ago.” 

Carrie sighed in frustration, and he saw her arm move into the empty space between them. “Hardly fits the profile,” she said, sounding disappointed. _Fucking join the club, Carrie._ “Any munitions training? Experience with explosives?” 

“Uh, _no_ ,” Quinn retorted, unable to keep his irritation at bay. He was fucking helping her, wasn’t he? She asked for his help, so here he fucking was, two Red Bulls in, and nothing to show for it except five rejected personnel files. He looked up at her, his mouth set tightly, and she gave a heavy exhale, hand on her hip like she was about to send him to the principal’s office for slacking off. 

“Alright,” she conceded after a second, waving a hand in defeat. “Add him to the list anyway.”

“Yeah,” Quinn replied, putting a hand to the top of the laptop and pressing it shut, too tired to even think about slamming it, throwing it against the wall in anger, and driving the heel of his boot through it for good measure, “which begs the question, are we even sure that the guy who made the bomb moved Brody’s car?” He scratched the corner of his cheek with a dull thumbnail before looking up at her. He was dropping by the second, starting to regret getting reeled back into her delusional fantasies. 

“Depends.”

“On what?”

Carrie started to take a slow seat, every inch of her body tender for one reason or another. She dropped herself into the chair, glad the relief didn’t show on her face. “On whether or not you believe Javadi-“

“Which you do,” Quinn pointed out.

“Which I _do_ ,” she confirmed, lifting a hand to run it through her hair, thinking about how the front button of her jeans was digging into her stomach. “But it takes more than an _opinion_ to put it in front of Saul.” She reached out to lift a corner of a file folder, mostly just so she wouldn’t have to look too long at Quinn. 

“Right,” Quinn said softly, and then she did look at him. He was sitting rim-rod straight in his chair: military posture. She watched his mouth move, and even though almost every part of her brain was screaming _Brody_ , almost every part of her body was instead screaming _Quinn_. She could still feel it - the pressure of his hands on her legs, the twisting along her over-sensitive breasts, the sharpness of his pelvic bone as she ground back against him. The little flutter in her belly was too strong to attribute to the lemon growing inside of her - the internet had said _lemon-sized_. She felt sick at the thought of it.

There was a moment, when he first saw her naked, that she thought he knew. She almost hoped he’d known - the secret was practically eating her alive. But even though his gaze had lingered, he hadn’t stopped. Carrie wasn’t exactly sure why she did it, why she went to him, knowing that he wouldn’t refuse the company. Something in that kitchen had haunted him - was it Javadi? Fariba? The baby crying on the floor? She had been hesitant to leave him alone, not when he looked more defeated than she had ever seen him. Truthfully, she had been curious for a long time. Dreamed about it, even, woken up with her hands between her thighs, her body still trembling, Quinn’s face still lingering behind her eyelids. It had been better than that. Frantic, rough, fast, leaving her with rubber legs for too long afterwards. He hadn’t spoke, but he made pained sounds of pleasure, low against her ear, rumbling along her ribs. 

Across from her, Quinn was growing frustrated. He kept looking at her like _that_ , like nearly everyone did when she went down the dangerous road of mania, following hunches, throwing caution, doing absolutely ridiculous things. But it wasn’t the same. She could convince herself of that easily. _This time would not be the same as last time._ Did she tell herself that every time? 

“I still can’t believe all these people are gone.” Quinn had opened the _deceased personnel_ file. Her brain immediately flipped back to Brody, the father of her child - the poor lemon who’d been fucked into next Sunday by this man across from them. She bit her lip, unwilling to think about it, looking over her shoulder, despite the empty office.

“Where’s Fara anyway?” she asked, her voice a little too loud, trying to get back to work. _Brody. Brody. Brody._ “She was supposed to be here over an _hour_ ago.” 

Quinn shrugged, pushing himself up, picking up the empty energy drink can in front of him. He lobbed it across the room, where it landed cleanly in the garbage bin by the door. She watched the front of his shirt as he walked along the side of their desks. “I’m going to make coffee,” he said, coming to a stop in front of her. “You interested?”

“Yes,” she sighed, looking down at the pile of useless file folders by her arm. “Wait, no-“ She had a memory of high school health class, about caffeine and iron and prenatal nutrition. Did she care suddenly? She wasn’t sure. “Actually, yes.”

Quinn raised one eyebrow, mouth twitching with a reluctant smile. “Carrie?” he asked slowly, in that lightly demanding way he had. She let out a lightly embarrassed exhale, pushing herself from her seat. She had expected him to step back, to let her out without pushing her chair away with the backs of her knees. He didn’t. He stood there and so when she straightened, she was within a breath of him. He smelled like the soap he kept in his shower. She had also looked in his bathroom cabinets, which had all been bizarrely empty, just like the rest of his house. 

The smile had vanished from his face, his blue eyes dark in the low light. They looked at each other, and she remembered sharply the way his mouth felt, the way _he_ felt. Warmth flooded beneath her stomach, and she felt weak under his gaze, as if he was punishing her for doing something wrong. For being such a hapless whore, for fucking him with another man’s baby growing inside her, for merely thinking about Brody - for putting Brody first. 

_Brody. Brody. Brody._

He saw it on her face, in her wide eyes, and stepped away to leave her, once again, alone.

…

It was kind of funny how quickly it all went to shit. Quinn focused the scope on Carrie as she jogged down the sidewalk, around the corner to the motel parking lot, her eyes looking skyward, trying to pinpoint their location. 

“Listen to the man, Carrie,” Quinn said, focusing his heartbeat into his throat, leaving his hands perfectly steady, moving the dial in fractions of millimetres. She was manic, off her medication. He had seen this countless times by now, her rash judgements, poor decisions, her mania blinding her. Tunnel vision: Nicholas Brody. She couldn’t think about anything but him, but he didn’t dwell on it. His adrenaline was high, just like it always was in the field, leaving his hands still, but heart pumping, every nerve-ending on fire. 

Scott’s voice was calm in his ear, technical, like a recording. “Bravo, I am authorizing force. Take the shot-“ 

Quinn ignored the repeat, reaching out to tap his sniper. “Let me,” he said quickly, offering the man the spotting position. They switched places, Quinn’s hands easily finding the smooth handle of the rifle, the touch of the trigger. He immediately found Carrie in its scope, ignoring the possessive bloom of heat he felt from chest to groin. If she was going down, he would take the shot. He would take care of her - he trusted not another soul to do it. 

“Carrie,” he said clearly, reigning in his impatience, “this is Quinn. Break away.” Not that he thought for a single second she would listen to him. He was learning that mania could not be easily persuaded.

“I’m sorry, I can’t.” 

He watched her still walking, following every movement, his crosshairs trained on her face. “You’re _fucking_ us, Carrie. Months of work - _your_ work.” Never mind that she was now forcing him to shoot her - he would. He would be ordered to do it - he had _already_ been ordered to do it - and he would take her out. She didn’t care about the guilt this would leave him with, she only cared to clear Brody’s name, whether or not it could actually be done. 

“I don’t care,” she protested, her voice cracking a little with emotion. She’d rather die than let Brody be. Quinn had to swallow back any anger - it wasn’t the time. His right hand tightened and went still as he took aim, dropping the weapon’s barrel, finding that crook of her shoulder. 

“Carrie, I _will take the shot._ ” 

“Window’s closing, for Christ’s sake!” Dar snarled in his ear. He was first a soldier, and so he reacted immediately to the order. The trigger gave and Quinn’s body steadied the shot, the bullet instantly landing its mark, Carrie dropping to the ground below. He let out his breath, leaning back to empty the cartridge, eyes still on the distinct heap beneath the motel staircase. Leaning in, he coldly watched Franklin kill the bomber and enter the motel room.

“He’s in - Franklin is inside. Pick her up, for _God’s_ sake,” he said into his com, already extracting himself from the rifle. He barely waited for his partner to grab the stock, scrambling for footing along the roof as he hurried to the nearest staircase. He had shot her in the upper arm, missing any major arteries, preventing any serious injuries, but there would be significant damage. It was unavoidable. Plus she would probably hate him - whatever the fuck that meant. 

He scrambled through the building’s stairwell, barely making it to the ops van in time, practically running headfirst into Dar. “What was the delay?” the older man demanded, glaring at him, knowing exactly why he needed the second order to shoot her. 

Quinn glared right back at him as he stepped up into the van. “I _stopped_ her, didn’t I?” he snapped, all of the adrenaline running through him now picking up every angry thought he’d held over the last three minutes. 

“ _Go with her_ ,” Dar complained, rounding the other side of the van, “I’ll watch Franklin.” 

Quinn didn’t even care if he said anything else, he was already slamming the van shut, and the driver was pulling out of the parking lot. The team had laid Carrie on a table inside and the van rocked unsteadily as they sped down the road. She was breathing heavily, pupils so large they blacked out the rest of her eyes, struggling against him as he ripped open the top of her t-shirt. 

“ _Carrie_ , it’s me,” he said impatiently, not stopping to talk her down, jerking the jersey material down over her nude-coloured bra. It was already stained with red, and she was bleeding heavily because the shot was jagged, about half a centimetre too far left - he was rusty. He grabbed a roll of field bandage, starting a tourniquet, Scott talking loudly behind him. 

“Hospital’s on the line.” 

“Tell em you got a gunshot wound to the upper left bicep - significant bleeding, might have clipped an artery.” Quinn didn’t take his eyes off her, tightening the bandage brutally, and she twisted in pain as he applied pressure using a heavy dose of strength. She yelled out, her back bowing as he tied it off. “Hold on,” he told her, though she probably couldn’t even hear him. “You’re gonna be alright.” 

She yelled again, sobbed, and his mouth twitched as she started crying, swearing, gaze blindly turned to the van’s ceiling. He settled against her, pushing on her shoulder, trying to decrease the bleeding. The coppery smell was strong, familiar, but he was so intent on Carrie that he couldn’t even consider the last time his hands were coated in this much blood. She was breathing so shallow, and every instinct in him kicked in, every ounce of training that he had suffered at the hands of Dar Adal. 

“Quinn?” she asked, looking for him, but her eyes wouldn’t focus. His heart clenched and he pressed a little harder on her shoulder, leaning over so she could see him. 

“Yeah,” he said quietly.

“Is the bomber dead?” she writhed underneath his grip, her body shuddering in pain, her face twisted. 

“Yeah,” he repeated, unsure if she actually saw him. She swore, trying to do five different things at once, but the pain too great and she sobbed through her words. 

“Something’s going on,” she whined angrily, still trying to fight his grip, the pressure of his hands that was the only thing keeping her from bleeding out on the table. He snorted silently, knowing what she meant, but not going to give it to her.

“Yeah, you got shot,” he said dryly. 

“Yeah, no _shit_ , you _shot_ me!” Carrie snapped. So he had been right - she was pissed as hell at him, even though if it was anyone else, she’d most likely be dead. She squirmed again with the pain and he watched the blood trickle out from under his fingers, soaking the bandage, running down the ruined bra. “No, I mean… something is going on… none of this- none of this makes sense.” 

Quinn had no patience to entertain her delusions. She was starting to babble from the blood loss and from the shock, her face going an unpleasant shade of pale. “Just _breathe_ , okay? Deep breaths. Come on.” 

She couldn’t look at him, neck turning from side to side, still trying to breathe, but it only coming in short little gasps. It reminded him of when he found her in MCH: unwilling to meet his gaze, panicked and shamed and undeniably manic. How long had it been since she went off her lithium? Obviously more than a few days. His head started to pound with the implications of it, of everything that had happened since she left the psychiatric hospital. All of their exchanges - words, arguments, sex. His mouth was suddenly dry, and he looked to the front of the van, trying to gauge how far they were from the emergency room.

“C’mere,” she said suddenly and his neck swung around before he’d had a chance to stop it. He looked down at her, as she gestured for him to move in. “Come closer,” she whispered, frantically. He frowned, his gaze flickering from her eyes to her mouth, unsure what she wanted. What he wanted was to kiss her, stroke her hair, her face, calm her down. But she wouldn’t ask him that, especially not with three other men in the van. He looked quickly back to the front, but no one was watching them, so he leaned in, waiting for her to clarify.

“Where the _fuck_ is Saul?” were the sour words that came out of her mouth. He stared at her, surprised that she had asked, and even more surprised that he didn’t know. He hadn’t seen him all day, and Carrie seemed to already know it. But the van took a wild swing to the left and he was forced with it, his balance gone - his hands still glued to her shoulder. 

“Naval hospital!” Scott shouted and the van came to an abrupt stop, sending everything rattling to the front. Quinn braced himself with his knee against the table, keeping Carrie from sliding off. She sobbed in pain, blood spurting through his hands, nearly hitting him in the face.

“Jesus _fuck_ ,” Quinn complained at the driver. “Little fucking warning might be nice!” 

Scott moved past them to unlatch the back door. Carrie was still looking up at him with tears of pain and betrayal streaming down her face, and Quinn had to glance away when a pair of medics pushed into the already cramped space. 

“Sir, we can take it from here,” one of them said, gently pushing him off Carrie, and it took Quinn a second to remember that this was their _job_ , that they knew more than he did about sewing up busted arteries and ripped muscle. He muttered an apology as he moved back, but Carrie protested, shaking her head, wriggling in the medics’ grips as they transported her down from the van.

“Quinn!” she shrieked and Scott stared at him, wild-eyed, confused at their dynamic, alarmed at Carrie’s sudden panic. Quinn ignored him, following the medics off the steep step, finding Carrie as they laid her on a transport gurney. He could tell immediately it was mild PTSD, being back in a hospital triggering something more than hydraulic shock. 

“Hey, you gotta go,” he said quietly, walking in pace with the medics as they steered her through the automatic doors. Even though the air was warm, Carrie was badly flushed, her body shaking. He touched her face briefly, wiping a streak of blood from her cheek. “They’ll bring you right into surgery. It’ll be alright.” 

“Please don’t leave,” she sobbed, trying to fight one of the medics’ steady grip, but easily losing. They slowed down a step so she would relax. One of the medics, who was doing a better job at stopping the blood flow, gave him a curious look, her eyes flickering over his all-black attire, his field watch, his bare forearms showing way too much blood, his sleeves rolled cleanly to his elbows. 

“Carrie, I’m not gonna fucking leave,” he replied, torn between impatience and amusement. “But I’m not a surgeon. I’ll be here when you get out.” Her wild eyes looked up at the medics before back at him, the horror starting to ease from her face. “Alright?”

“Fine,” she whispered, closing her eyes to hide the panic. They paused briefly at the end of a hallway, and Quinn glanced around to see that they were transferring for surgery prep. The male medic was in conversation with a medical technician, while his female partner was still looking at Quinn curiously. He stepped a little to the right, blocking her view of Carrie’s face as he leaned down just the few inches that were between them now. Her eyes were red, her face a mess, her expression twisting even as she closed her eyelids to him. He lowered his mouth, kissing her quickly, mostly just to reassure himself. He might have shot her, but she was still alive. She raised watery eyes at him and then her gurney was gone, the medics pushing it beyond the swing doors.


	18. One Last Thing

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello, my darlings. Thank you for all your lovely reviews. As such, I feel the need to apologize in advance for this chapter.

**One Last Thing**

It was past midnight, and Carrie was still heavily sedated, fresh from surgery. Quinn shifted in the wooden seat, peering behind him at the hospital room door, as if expecting some nurse or doctor to bust in and tell him visiting hours were over and to get the hell out. But the floor was quiet and dark, and he sighed, running his palm over his head and down his face. Her pale face worried him - the doctors hadn’t told him a damn thing about her surgery, her mobility, her recovery time. 

But there was a stack of papers on the windowsill next to him, a wayward file folder that he had easily swiped from the nurses’ station. He hadn’t looked at it yet, but every single part of him wanted to open it. Carrie’s medical history was something he had no business knowing, but the guilt was starting to get to him. If he did serious damage, and she was never sent to the field again, she would - in no uncertain terms - hate every fucking inch of him. 

He pushed himself to his feet, walking over to the file - _C. Mathison_. It was considerably thick and he opened the top fold to see the latest records. Post-op x-rays, EKG, blood work - his eyes flickered down the results. Most things were in low to normal ranges - CBC, NA/K, beta HGC. Quinn’s gaze stopped dead on HGC, which was circled with a yellow highlighter. He knew what it was, but he didn’t know what the number next to it meant - 4300 mIU/ml. His blood had drained from his face and he felt light-headed, nearly sick, as he scrambled through the rest of the pages, looking for further explanation.

He didn’t have to look far. The date of the prenatal exam had been only hours earlier, that same morning. His heart was trying to escape through his mouth, the beat of it loud and panicked. He knew logically that it wasn’t his - it hadn’t even been 72 hours since they had slept together - but what he saw instead was no less comforting. She had had a full exam done. More blood work, ultrasound, complete with sonogram. A little black and white picture was clipped to a page with doctor’s notes. 13 weeks. She was 13 weeks pregnant.

Quinn knew exactly who the father was. 13 weeks ago he had watched from a dock across the lake as Brody helped her conceive it. He was going to be sick - throw up blood and acid, because he hadn’t eaten a thing since that morning when he’d washed down a bagel with three energy drinks and two cups of coffee. Fuck him, his vision was swimming. He gripped onto the counter as he clenched down on his back teeth, anger and humiliation sending twitches through the rest of his face. Because there was no way she didn’t know - she’d known she was pregnant with Brody’s child when she let him touch her.

He thought of her body, of that little swell of her stomach that wasn’t yet big enough to be truly noticeable. Brody’s child was in her. A man he hated for so many reasons, some he didn’t even know, most he didn’t like to acknowledge. “Fuck,” he muttered, fighting every angry urge he had. He pressed his lips together, letting the betrayal wash over him, closing the folder so he didn’t have to look at it another fucking second. 

_It wasn’t the child’s fault._

“Your wife’s going to be fine,” an amused voice said from the doorway. “You should go home - get some rest.”

Quinn practically dropped the file he was holding, caught in the act, too distracted to hear anyone’s approach. The female medic from earlier was standing in the doorway, dressed in civilian clothes. She smiled shyly at him and he tried a short smile in return, but it came out too much like a grimace. “She’s… not my wife,” he said after a beat, turning to face the medic. “Just… a colleague.” 

The woman raised skeptical eyebrows. “Oh.” 

Quinn took a quick glance at Carrie, but she was unmoving as he crossed the room, tucking the file beneath his arm. “Shift change?” he asked the medic, nodding to her street clothes as he closed the door to Carrie’s room. 

“Yeah, I’m headed home,” she shrugged, running a hand through her auburn hair, light eyes on him in a way that was hard to miss. Her lips were wide, open, and she was pretty - young, slim under a sundress to combat the warm night outside. She smiled at his long gaze, opened her mouth, then looked at the folder he had, frowning. “Where’d you get that?”

Quinn winced, pressing his lips together as he tried a sheepish shrug, but the contents of the folder made his entire torso heavy. He needed a drink. Maybe two, maybe five. “Just returning it, actually…” 

“I’ll take it,” the woman said matter-of-factly, holding out her hand for the folder. Quinn paused, cocking his head a bit to the left, narrowing his eyes at her.

“What, don’t you trust me?” he tried, but it didn’t come out quite right, not the way that he intended. Too smooth, less harsh. She looked up at him, her fingers touching her lips and he felt that tug below his belt. He swallowed, his brain arguing with his dick - _this would not be a good idea_. He just needed to get out of the hospital, away from Carrie, away from this woman who had no idea what she was in for if she pressed him any further. Her fingers went to her hair, playing with the strands, her eyes on his mouth, his jaw, down his neck where the unbuttoned collar of his shirt revealed the plane of his chest. 

“No,” she teased, although her soft voice rang with thin truth, “I don’t trust you.” Her hand reached toward him and he stiffened, but her fingers closed on the folder edge by his ribs, tugging it free, a light swish as it travelled past his shirt. His heart was back in his throat as he watched her, following the light rounding of her cheeks. It wouldn’t even be revenge - Carrie wouldn’t know, and probably wouldn’t care. It would be a release, like cracking his shoulders or stretching his legs. Sex had never really been a vice, but it was always tempting - she wasn’t his type, but that was easily enough ignored.

Quinn lifted his arm, letting her pull the folder free. She turned on a heel, pushing past him into Carrie’s hospital room, glancing back to see if he was following her, her ass rolling beneath the dress. His heart was hammering in his throat, but he stepped forward, pointedly forgetting Carrie’s previously-closed door, not even giving it a second thought. But she wasn’t as easy to forget, even as the young medic shut the door after him, sending them into semi-darkness. With the door sealed, the light from the corridor outside had dimmed - the only source now was the emergency power lights over the entrance, and the coloured lights from the machines by the wall. But he could still see Carrie, lying in the bed, eyes closed, mouth silent, merely five feet away. He stared at her, even as the medic tried to distract him, her lips meeting the side of his throat, her hands pulling his shirt free of his belt. 

_He couldn’t fucking do this._

But whatever rational thought he might have had was gone as the medic’s hands were suddenly inside the front of his pants. He exhaled sharply, the breath coming out as a shudder, and he nearly fell into the chair behind him. She pushed him down into it, her wide eyes watching him, the folder discarded on the floor as she wrapped her thin fingers around the length of him, stroking slowly. Quinn jammed his eyelids shut, his stomach convulsing at the movement, his body slouching back in the chair, all of the day’s tension seeming to pool right in the small of his back. The monitor beeped, and he remembered Carrie. Unconscious, because he had shot her. Damaged and hurt and _fucking pregnant with Brody’s kid_. His chest flared angrily and he ground the heel of his boot into the floor, his body and mind fighting for reason.

“Fuck,” he muttered, scrubbing his face with his palm. He opened his eyes, intent to get the hell out of this, but the female medic had dropped to her knees, her mouth finding him, and he no longer had any thoughts at all. He might’ve cursed, could’ve stomped both feet into the ground, possibly uttered the name _Carrie_ , but he would never know. He had been jacked on adrenaline for the last three hours, and it was now pounding through him, searching for a way out. The young medic was eager, all tongue and mouth, fingernails digging into his legs, breath hot on his stomach. He was so fucking close - it would all be over and he could go back to his empty house and get absolutely shit-faced with guilt.

But it didn’t. The woman stood and by the time he had collected any coherent thought, she was pulling her underwear down her legs, easily landing herself in his lap. His gaze went past her, to where Carrie laid in the bed. The woman spoke breathily to him, possibly _it's fine, I'm on the pill_ or something to that effect, but his eyes were locked on Carrie’s face. He couldn’t stop the low grunt that escaped him when his body tensed in reflex, to this woman’s sex and ass rolling on him, her breasts in his face. His cruel brain replayed Carrie, replacing one woman with another, the shape of her mouth, the curve of her ribs, her blonde hair and hooked nose and impatient tongue and hands. The medic was too needy, trying to kiss him, so he turned his face down, hiding his mouth in her throat, his eyes travelling again to Carrie, greedily looking for material. But Carrie was looking right back at him, eyes open, and yet the room was too dark to see the harshness of her gaze. His chest tightened with the shock, and in turn his stomach dropped and his teeth clenched as he orgasmed.

_Fuck fuck fuck fuck._

The second he came, he thought he would puke. He couldn’t push the woman off him fast enough, and she stumbled, protesting. Quinn stared at Carrie, but her eyes had closed again, feigning sleep, or maybe unconscious again, he had no idea. He hastily shoved himself back into his clothes, fumbling with his zipper, already walking across the room to leave. The medic was staring at him, blushing fiercely, confused and ashamed by his actions as she tried to fix her own clothing, his semen now running down the insides of her legs. 

He wasn’t sure what he’d just done. But he knew he had to get the fuck away from her - from both of them.


	19. Good Night

**Good Night**

He didn’t step another foot inside the hospital again. Couldn’t bring himself to even think about it. She had seen him - _caught_ him - fucking the medic in the same exact room she was sedated in - _supposed_ to have been sedated in. The anxiety of seeing her again this morning churned away in the middle of his chest, and he took a long pull of coffee, wishing he had thrown out half and replaced it with Bushmills. But their play was too important, too risky to disregard those soldiers’ lives, and she would instantly smell the alcohol on his breath. 

Quinn had arrived at work 30 minutes early, even though Carrie was always 10 minutes late. His knee jumped as he waited on the bench outside the elevator, trying to think of what he would say, what excuse he would spin. 

_So, you’re pregnant. Thanks a fucking lot._

_Not like he hadn’t seen_ her _get nailed by somebody else._

_You tell him? Did you tell Brody you’re pregnant before you shipped him back to that third-world shithole to get blown to fucking pieces? Not that he didn’t deserve it._

_Or did you just send him off with a goodbye lay._

_So don’t fucking look at him like that, like you’ve never done a fucking thing wrong._

Of course, he would say none of those things. Because when she came around the corner, fast footsteps preceding her, he only felt an immense sense of guilt. 

_When had he become such a god damn pussy?_

_Oh, right. When he came out of the field and into her ops room._

“Carrie.” He said her name before she saw him. She already looked irritated, licking her lips as she paused by the elevator. He practically jumped off the bench, taking three long steps toward her as she pushed the UP button. He cleared his throat, finding himself woefully unprepared - untangling the strap on his bag, trying not to spill his coffee on her as she stepped back, closer than he had anticipated. “We need to talk,” he said quietly, nearly pleading. 

“What about?” she snapped, glancing over at him, but not actually looking at him, just barely giving him the time of day. Like he was the world’s biggest inconvenience. He needed to explain - say _something_ \- before she hauled back and kicked him in the balls, pushed him to the floor, stamped on his face on her way into the elevator, into Brody’s play. He finally landed the strap on his shoulder as he looked down at her black clothes, her blonde hair pulling against the material with static, holding herself carefully, her sutures only just set. He didn’t think about the column of her neck, smooth skin following the collarless shirt she was wearing, barely hidden by her blazer. 

“How’s your shoulder?” he asked, like the coward he was. 

“Brand-fuckin-new,” Carrie retorted, rolling her eyes angrily at him before back at the elevator. 

She was going to make it as painful and awkward as she possibly could, he knew that. He sighed, not taking his eyes off her face, not even able to. His entire body felt heavy, gravitated toward her, wanting her to forgive him more than he wanted almost anything else. Strange how that worked. 

“I wanna clear the air, after that… clusterfuck with Franklin at the motel.” _After that moment in the hospital when she caught him fucking the medic that possibly saved her shoulder, if not her life._

Carrie read through the lines, rolling her eyes, angrily shifting her weight as she looked away from him, her light eyes cutting him down to his trembling gut. “Not _interested_ ,” she complained, shaking her head, closing her eyes, as if she couldn’t even stomach the thought of looking at him again. “I’m so tired of all the _bullshit_ and people covering their asses, I can’t even tell you.” 

Quinn looked at the elevator screen, watching as it came down the last few floors toward them. He wished it would swing forward and drop him where he stood, so at least he wouldn’t have to deal with Carrie’s guilt-trip when he was dead. It wasn’t clear, if she was talking about the motel or the hospital, so he stuck to the safer one, knowing that whatever he said she would take as a reply to both. Never mind the fact they were still in earshot of the C.I.A. lobby, where the security guards ate up campus gossip like teenage girls. If he opened his mouth, the President himself would know within the hour. 

“It was a direct order, Carrie,” he replied softly, glancing back at the lobby, where all eyes were on them. It had gotten around quickly: Carrie breaking command, him sniping her from the nearest rooftop, the van-ride back to the hospital. He glanced at the floor before back at her face. “I didn’t wanna risk letting someone else take the shot.” He had to look away, but when he looked back, she was watching him silently. He had cared enough to make sure she wasn’t dead, but apparently not enough to not betray her trust and privacy. It was written on her face. 

The elevator arrived and she took a step inside without answering. He followed her, watching the back of her head as she shook it in irritation, disbelief. She punched the floor button, and stood angrily next to him as the doors closed behind them. His coffee cup felt awkward, and he clutched it, afraid to let it go. But he didn’t stop watching her, the side of her face. He wanted her, he wanted to push her up against the elevator wall, have her hands back in his hair, her legs around his waist, erase the last string of massive fuck-ups between them. Erase any trace of Brody and the bullet and the medic. But then they would never be able to erase Brody, because she was carrying his child. 

He impatiently looked at the screen, at the wall, chewing on the inside of his cheek as he grew annoyed with her. She hadn’t told him. They were in this fucking mess because she hadn’t bothered to mention that she was pregnant. He licked his lips, watching her sigh out of the corner of his eye, feeling his jaw clench and unclench as they stood in painful silence. He glanced at her, swallowing the urge to yell, and his voice came out of his mouth carefully controlled. 

“While you were in surgery, I took a look at your medical records.” He looked back at her just in time for her shocked eyes to lift to his. A quick dawn of realization flickered over her face, before it contorted with anger. 

“You what?” she asked, frowning at him, but at least finally looking at him, acknowledging him. 

He gave a shadow of a shrug, unable to look down at her hidden stomach, trying to disguise it with a quick glance at her shoulder. “I was _worried_ … about the damage I’d done.” Fuck him, the emotion was showing through his voice, his face. He held her gaze, willing her to understand. But she didn’t understand - or maybe she did, she just didn’t understand why he then felt the need to add to the humiliation. 

She scoffed loudly, turning away from him. But he needed to say it. 

“ _Carrie_ … you’re 15 weeks pregnant.” 

She glared at him, defiant. “So?” 

“So I think you should consider sitting this part of the operation out.” They had turned toward each other in a stand-off, Carrie still glaring, him still trying to regain any calm and collectedness that was once his forte. 

“And why would I do that?” she snapped, hands on her hips, her head twisting angrily at his god damn nerve. 

“Because it’s _impossible_ for you to be _objective_ under the circumstances.” And just like that, they were in it. They were having the conversation he had been playing in his head for the last two weeks. It just wasn’t going the way he wanted - because now he really felt guilty. He had fucked her and shot her, and she had been pregnant. 

Now she was outright pissed. “The _circumstances_ being I’m carrying Brody’s child?” 

He swallowed. “Yes,” he replied, trying to get a better handle on her, on their argument. He kept her gaze, and she was the first to retreat, to go on the defensive. It was a hollow victory. 

“Well, first of all,” she started, giving him that manic look. It made his mouth twitch, “it’s not _his_ , thank you very much.” He recoiled at her outright lie - how _stupid_ did she think he was? “Second of all, it’s none of your _damn_ business, or anyone else’s, so stay the fuck out of my way.” The elevator opened conveniently, and she was already through it, breathing angrily, stomping her way down the hall. He followed, tongue and lips sour, brain pulsing inside his skull. 

“So you didn’t think I _deserved_ to know?” he called after her before he could stop himself. She froze immediately, not even partway down the hall, and turned to glare at him, reaching out for the shelves by her side as if unable to steady herself from the anger. 

“I didn’t then and I sure as _hell_ don’t now,” she snapped, her eyebrows raised to her hairline, her eyes suddenly glassy from emotion. He didn’t even have to wait, because it all fell out of her in a steady stream of shaking words. “What, you think I didn’t see you? _Hear_ you? There wasn’t any empty room you could have fucked her in?” 

“Carrie…” 

She took a step back and he cast a wary gaze forward, at the security camera outside the heavily locked door at the end of the corridor. But they were just far enough away, out of site of the eyes’ inside. He was sure she’d hit him, but she didn’t - she just bowed her head and a tear fell down her face. Oh, fuck, she was crying. His throat constricted as he tried to swallow. 

“I was… _angry_. At you - at _him_ … I wasn’t thinking - I’m a fucking moron.” His voice was barely above a whisper and he moved back a few steps, past the end of the shelving, securely away from the camera, away from the door, incase anyone were to look out on them. He dropped his coffee-cup onto the shelf as he tucked her against the wall, waiting for her to speak. One of her hands came to the front of his shirt, clutching at the material as she pressed her forehead against his chest. His heart pounded in response. 

She scoffed, hurriedly wiping her face. “You got that right.” 

“I’m sorry,” he replied lamely. “But Carrie-“ 

“I should’ve told you, I know, I know.” She shook her head, her fingernails worrying with the dark buttons down his stomach. “So I’m pregnant, okay?” 

“Okay,” Quinn nodded, her light tone lifting a massive weight from the back of his neck. He leaned his cheek against the side of her hair, his mouth close to the edge of her ear, the familiar smell of her back in his nose. “Oh, and I fucked a paramedic in your hospital room.” 

Carrie snorted, placing her palm on his chest, above the v of his shirt, his skin surely hot under her touch. She slid her fingers up, around his neck, and he was surprised when she leaned up and lightly kissed him. He hadn’t realized his palms were aching for her until he dragged them down her back, pressing himself tightly against her, the round of her belly against his belt. Her tongue was light, slick with his, and he stepped forward until she met the edge of the metal shelving, a light _umph_ coming from her chest, right into his mouth. She turned her head, breaking the kiss. 

“I… I…” She flitted her hand by the side of her head, pressing her lips together to keep from crying. “My _brain_ keeps telling me I _love_ him, you know? And this baby… it deserves a father-” 

Quinn gave a heavy sigh, lifting a hand to cup her face, stroking the side of her cheekbone with the edge of his thumb, not willing to say _even if the father’s a terrorist_. “I know,” he replied instead, glancing up as he saw movement behind the door to the ops room. “C’mon, we’re already late. Let’s go get Brody into Iran.” He checked his watch with a flick of his wrist. “You’re gonna be okay?” 

“ _Fine_ ,” Carrie whispered in irritation, as if everyone had asked her that a million times already. Quinn dropped his hand and stepped back, grabbing his coffee cup, but letting her go first. She fixed her hair, wiped her mouth as they walked down the corridor. They were silent as she punched in the access code, the biometric scan, but he reached out and opened the door for her, one last gesture before they were sucked into the ops room, back into the play. 


	20. Big Man in Tehran

**Big Man in Tehran**

Saul had called Quinn into his office, fixed him with a gaze that suggested he knew way too much - _of course he did, he was the fucking Director of the C.I.A_ \- and told him to keep an eye on Carrie. 

“Don’t let her out of your sight until she gets on that plane tomorrow morning,” he had deadpanned. “Can you do that?”

Quinn had nodded once, lips pressing together, and answered, “yes, Sir.”

He didn’t like the thought of Carrie in Tehran. In fact, he hated it, especially in the light of recent events, events that Saul was yet to know. But he was a good soldier, so he sat outside Carrie’s house once more. He had only been there about 15 minutes when his phone rang, his personal one. 

_Carrie M._

He sighed, reaching across the seat to grab the device, hitting the answer button as he brought it to his ear. “Hello?”

“Are you _outside_ my house?” she asked, not so much as a hi, how are you.

“Uh, yes.” He saw the shades move on the upper story window, the shadow of her face in the dull light. 

“What, no little paramedic girlfriend to keep you company tonight?” She gave a short laugh of derision and his jaw twitched, remembering the discomfort in the ops room that morning, even after their hallway stand-off. She had been emotional, panicked, glassy eyes and trembling lips. He had watched her carefully, but she hadn’t even so much as glanced at him, intent only on Brody. 

He _was not_ bitter. 

“There’s still time,” he said eventually, keeping his voice cool, despite the vicious jumping of his heart and gut.

He heard something slam through the line, and he thought for a second she had hung up on him, but she spoke a second later. “Did Saul send you?” Her voice was only lightly accusing. She took his silence as a positive, and let out a sigh of frustration. “What does he think I’m gonna do?”

“No idea,” Quinn sighed, leaning back into his seat, running his tongue over his lower lip. “You’re kind of unpredictable.”

She snorted at that, and he relaxed, squinting up at the house, looking for signs of her, but there were none.

“You can come in, you know. I’ll make you some coffee.”

“Carrie…” 

“Just promise not to laugh.”

Quinn blinked, not sure he’d heard her correctly. “What?”

But she hung up. He lowered the phone from his ear, still peering through his windshield at her silent neighbourhood. It was a tempting idea, he and Carrie back in the same room together, both lucid. But she was on the verge of some version of mania, and it left an unpleasant worry in the pit of his stomach. After a ten-second argument with himself, he gave in, opening the Durango door and stepping out onto the street. He kept a sharp gaze on the house as he headed through the gate, up the brick path to her door. He had watched Brody make the same trip - he had a feeling it wouldn’t end the same way.

Carrie opened the door before he landed on the top step, and he immediately understood her last words on the phone. She was wearing only a robe, and her hair was tied up on top of her head, in a beige towel marked with brown hair dye. He stared at her, a smile twisting its way onto his face. She rolled her eyes, but stepped back to let him in.

“I know, I’m a vision,” she said sarcastically.

Quinn paused in the foyer, looking back at her as she shut the door, his cheeks twitching as his chest fluttered uncomfortably. She smiled in embarrassment at him, gesturing to her head. “Figured I should get rid of the blonde hair. Coffee’s already brewing - I just need to wash this out.” 

She was in a good mood, Quinn noticed, as his critical gaze followed her up the stairs. So Brody was in Iran and she was on Cloud Nine, the play so close, the plan almost complete. Quinn knew she had this fantastic idea in her head - her and Brody living happily ever after, with their baby, probably at her cabin. No more C.I.A., no more terrorists, no more him. There was a huge lump in his throat that he had to swallow back as he walked through to the kitchen, looking at the coffee maker. It was more computer than drip-machine and he blinked at it, unsure.

“Carrie?” he called up the stairs. “How the hell do you use this thing? I don’t-“ He tried one button and immediately backed up when the machine made an unhappy gurgling sound. 

“What?” she shouted from upstairs, her voice muffled by running water in the tub. 

He sighed, scratching at the back of his neck as he walked to the stairs, starting up them. “The coffee machine - I have no clue what to do with it…” He faded off as he saw through to the off-master bath, Carrie looking in the mirror, unwrapping the towel from her head. She glanced over at him, blanching, a light frown on her face, as if she remembered the last time he had found himself in her upstairs hall. 

“It’s not _that_ complicated,” she said pointedly, wiping the dye off her forehead with one of the towel’s clean corners. 

“It made a sound,” Quinn replied helplessly. Carrie raised her eyebrows at him, but he just shrugged, watching as she kneeled down at the side of the bathtub, pulling at the handheld shower-head, starting to wash the dye from her hair. He took a step forward, reaching for the handle. “Here, Carrie…” He closed his hand over hers, but she tugged away to fix her hair, draping it further into the tub. She glanced at him over her shoulder, giving a small smile.

“Thanks.”

“No problem.” He carefully smoothed her hair as he brought the warm water through the strands, watching the pools of dye running down the drain. He wiped the dye from the edges of her temple as he ran the water deeper to the nape of her neck. Even though they’d been through so much shit, so many deeply personal moments, this felt more intimate than any of them. Quinn felt a betraying warmth through his chest, accompanying an unbearable bitterness along his back teeth. She was leaving to go to Tehran in the morning, to retrieve the father of her child, to tidy up her life - a life which he would be removed from, delegated to the strictly professional side. 

They switched angles and he cleaned her other temple, bringing the water through the other half of her hair. She was looking up at him, her shoulders on the edge of the tub, her eyes on the twitch in his jaw. When he was done, he reached forward and switched the water off, leaving them in heavy silence. 

“Hey.” Carrie shifted her weight back so she was sitting on the edge of the tub, leaning over him and grabbing a clean towel off the floor. She tied it through her hair, letting him watch the movements. “It’ll be fine, you’ll see.” She lifted a hand, touching it lightly to his jaw, moving her mouth in and kissing him lightly, chastely, what felt like a goodbye between friends. Quinn sighed, staring down at the tub as she stood up, walking past him. 

She fell asleep on the couch watching Seinfeld reruns, and he spent the night watching her from the next chair.


	21. The Star

**The Star**

From his vantage point, Quinn could clearly see Brody’s face, watch the life drain from it, his eyes bulging as his neck swelled. It would never be pretty, watching someone hanged, but the coldness of this one bothered him. The severity of it. Just before Brody died, he saw a woman climb the fence, and he knew it could only be Carrie. She clung to it for only a few seconds, before a guard hit a baton against the chain and she fell into the crowd. 

He jumped from the car roof he was standing on, glancing once more at Brody’s dead body, before he started to wade through the crowd, to where Carrie was being led away by Masud Sharazi. She was shaking, crying, her head bowed as Masud carefully wove her through the throngs of shouting people. The man saw him, their eyes meeting for a brief second, and Masud nodded. Quinn put his hand on Carrie’s forearm, then her shoulder, tugging her against him, Masud handing her off. In her grief, she barely noticed the change-over, and it was only the tight grip he held on with that made her look up in confusion. 

“Quinn?” Her gaze flickered around, as if in disbelief, and she stumbled under the rough footing. He held onto her tightly, keeping her upright as he searched for the waiting vehicle at the edge of the compound.

“It’s me. C’mon. We’re almost there… just a few more feet.” He held her closer as an explosion rocked the air behind them, a round of gunfire and he immediately quickened their pace, practically dragging Carrie with him. He took one hand off her to swing open the back door to the SUV, glancing over his shoulder at the next explosion, a bit closer this time. There was shouting, someone screaming, and he had to shove her into the backseat, climbing up after her, slamming the door.

“Get the _hell_ out of here,” he said to the driver. The vehicle jerked forward and they spun around, leaving the area, leaving Brody strung up by the Iranian crane. Carrie was sprawled where he had thrown her across the seat, curled around the edge of the leather, her headscarf falling over her face. She started to sob, loud ugly cries that wracked her entire body. 

“Carrie?” he asked loudly, suddenly unsure of her behaviour, what she would do now that Brody was dead. He pulled her scarf down, rolling her onto her back. He ran his hands over all her critical parts: head, neck, chest, ribs, stomach. His hands lingered on the swell he found there, now unmistakeable. She wasn’t hurt, and he let out an exhale that was mostly relief. 

Her sobs quieted, and he managed to right her in the seat, but she slumped against his shoulder, trembling in the arm that wrapped around her. He leaned his mouth against the top of her head, in her hair, his other hand coming up to stroke her neck, soothing her down. They rode onto the tarmac in silence, and he helped her from the SUV and onto the waiting plane. 

“How-how long have you been here?” she asked him as he lowered her onto the luxe airplane seat. He looked up at her, her unsteady gaze meeting his, still in shock. He knelt by her, buckling her in, tightening her seatbelt for her, his hands close to her hips and her chest. 

“Little over three hours,” Quinn replied dryly, leaning back and looking at her, offering a little smile. “Saul’s last order - _go get her_. So here I am.” 

“Thanks,” she whispered, though she seemed embarrassed to admit it. She lifted a hand and scrubbed her fingers over her cheeks. “I need… do-do you have anything?” 

He frowned at her, watching her expression carefully, not sure what she was getting at. “What do you mean?” The plane started to move on the tarmac and the sole flight attendant was standing at the front of the galley, pursuing her lips at him in disapproval. He raised a finger to her - _just a fucking second and he’ll put his seatbelt on._

“Like ambien, or…” She shrugged, looking down at her hands. “Something to help me sleep. I need to sleep.”

He sighed. “Carrie…”

“ _Please_ ,” she begged and his throat closed, heart hammering at the glassy eyes she pinned on him. He reached into his pocket, feeling his own little bottle of shame, pulling the small cylinder from his pants, twisting open the top. He emptied a selection of pills into his palm, finding a light pink _5401_. He handed it to her, and she swallowed it clean, without water. 

“See you in Germany,” he said, taking his own seat, just as the drug hit her.

…

Quinn was halfway asleep when he heard movement across the room. His eyes snapped awake as he reached his hand down, beneath the bed, for the Beretta that he had stashed there half an hour before. Without moving his head, he glanced to the source of the sound, to the slight shuffling of bare feet across the Ramstein hardwood. The early afternoon light flickered in through the closed window blinds, and he knew who it was before he looked over and saw her.

“ _Jesus_ , Carrie! You just scared the _shit_ out of me!” he complained loudly, his fingers releasing the gun’s handle as he rolled over, pushing himself up onto his elbows. 

“I can’t sleep,” she whispered.

He groaned, the exhaustion wearing at the ends of his eyeballs and he let his head drop back, staring at the air base’s ceiling. “That was the last ambien, Carrie. I don’t have anything else.” He lifted his head back up, watching her walking toward him, dressed in a loose t-shirt and cotton pajama bottoms. He followed her path back to the bathroom door, frowning up at her. “How the hell did you even get in here?”

She rolled her eyes at him, throwing back the edge of the covers, enough to coat him in cool air, but not enough to reveal his nakedness. “Our rooms are adjoined through the bathroom.” she said pointedly, as if it were obvious. He hadn’t even noticed, had just dropped his clothes on the back of the single chair and crawled into the bed. 

“Fucking Air Force dorms,” Quinn muttered, dropping back onto his pillow, but turning his head to watch as Carrie crawled next to him, tucking the blankets up around her neck. 

“At least it’s a double bed,” she replied, quirking a tired eyebrow at him.

“If it was a twin, you’d be out on your ass so fast…” he trailed off, looking at Carrie’s face, at the tiredness around her eyes and mouth. She moved closer so their faces were hardly separated, and he felt the warmth of her clothed body on his skin, her breath on his face. Her arm slowly moved, draping itself over his ribs and despite his exhaustion, he felt the warmth start to circle in the base of his spine, spread through the bottom of his scrotum. Her eyes dropped closed, and he waited a few minutes until he let his drop too.

…

He woke again several hours later, in the dark this time, Carrie’s breath on the back of his neck, her chest pressed tightly into his spine, her fingers still clutching onto his arm, even as he faced away from her. He rolled over, her hand sliding over his skin until she moved her fingers to his ear. Her eyes were open, the light curve of her eyelashes hitting some unknown light source. He blinked back at her, watching the slight opening of her lips, feeling her fingertips trail over his jaw line, tickling the stubble on his chin. 

He knew what she was asking him for, using him for. She had lost the man she loved - _thought_ she loved, the figure her mania loved - and she wanted a distraction. She wanted to be in somebody’s - _anybody’s_ \- arms again. He tried to forget that fact - focused only on the feel of her skin as he dragged his knuckles over the exposed area between her pants and shirt, hooking his thumb in the cotton material, tugging it over the round of her hip. She shifted, lifting her thigh off the mattress so he could pull the loose bottoms down her legs. She kicked them off her ankles, bunching them at the foot of the bed, beneath the blankets. 

“Quinn…” she whispered as he drew his hand around her stomach, the little life inside it. He walked his fingers down below her navel, and she inhaled sharply as he found the space between her legs. He moved his own weight, slipping one of his knees between her shins, pushing himself up onto one elbow, leaning over her. 

She stretched up to kiss him even as he dropped down to kiss her. She tasted like sleep, her lips chapped, but warm, soft, and familiar. The want bubbled up the back of his throat, twisting its way up the root of his spine, and the kiss deepened, lazy and wet, his fingers heavy between her thighs, index and middle pushing their way inside her. She whined softly against his mouth and every part of him twitched. The air seemed humid, and he felt sweat break out in the small of his back. 

Her hands dug through her own hair as her chest pressed up against him, his slow pace suddenly too much, yet not enough. His skin felt damp when she ran her palms down his neck, his chest, to where the weight of him pressed against her thigh. She had barely touched him when he abruptly shifted, just a dark shadow above her, moving between her legs, separating them with his knees. Was that her own voice making that sound? That soft hiss, that long whine from her chest, as he pulled his fingers out of her and wiped them off on the insides of her thighs. She trembled uncontrollably, sad for a reason she couldn’t quite remember.

His palms dragged up the backs of her thighs, pushing her knees up along his ribs as she felt the width of him - the weight of him. Their kiss had grown still, just a light meeting of their mouths, even though she could feel the harshness of his breath, so loud in the otherwise quiet room. Quinn wasn’t Brody - no one could ever be Brody. It could never be fuel for her brain’s inability to react. 

It felt better. 

…

“Carrie?” Quinn yelled through the open door, one eye on the series of text messages coming through his phone, the other on the empty foyer. “Carrie? We’re fucking ten minutes late already-“ He peered in through the living room, the kitchen, her desk, but she was nowhere to be found. “Carrie?” He started up the stairs, starting to worry, the back of his neck hurting. “I _said_ 0945\. It’s nearly 10. I can’t keep giving you rides if you keep making me fucking _late_ …” He trailed off as he saw her sitting on the edge of her bed, staring glumly at the shoe in her hand. He came to a stop in the doorway, placing his hands on either side of the doorframe as he cocked his head at her. “Carrie…. what are you doing?”

“I can’t… get my god damn shoe on!” she complained, holding the black boot up with one hand, gesturing to her pregnant stomach with the other. 

Quinn felt his cheeks twitch, but he clamped down on his lower jaw, preventing a smile. They had played this game many times over the past four months, and he had quickly learned not to even so much as snicker at a pregnant woman’s misfortune. “Alright,” he said, pushing himself off the frame and walking across the bedroom. He knelt next to her, taking the reluctant shoe she held out, and picking up her stocking foot. 

“Lockhart can fucking wait,” she complained. “Seriously, I’m eight months pregnant!” She pointed at her stomach, as if it wasn’t already obvious. Quinn just raised his eyebrows, intent on the task as he carefully bent back the boot’s tongue and guided her foot into it. He tied the thin laces, then looked at the other boot. She had managed to get it on, but not tie it, so he did that one too, then sat back on his heels to look at his handiwork. 

“Okay, let’s go-“ His knees cracked as he pushed himself up. Carrie held out her arms, giving a defeated eye-roll as he leaned down, grabbing her by the armpits. “Okay?” he asked, bracing his feet. She nodded, her eyes on him as he hoisted her to her feet, steadying her as she swayed with the newfound gravity. 

She exhaled, laughing in embarrassment. “Thanks.” 

Quinn gave her a small smile, used to the morning routine that they had established over the last several months. Some nights he stayed, others he didn’t - he went back to his rent-a-house, or the field, or the local 24-hour diner and drank way too much coffee while he conceded to his insomnia. He had become a sort of pseudo-partner - helping her dress, pulling her out of the tub and every seat she sat in, rubbing her back in the middle of the night when neither of them could relax. But mostly, they didn’t talk, not about anything significant anyways. Work, sex, food, music, television. Not Brody, not Iran, not whatever it was that they were doing. Quinn had a feeling it meant different things to each of them. 

“How’d you sleep?” he asked her, running his palms over her arms.

“Shitty,” she replied, sighing. She pulled at the edges of his shirt, sharpening the creases. “What, you get dressed in the dark this morning?” She gave him a dry look, but the corners of her mouth turned up.

Quinn shrugged, waiting patiently as she fixed the hem of his shirt by his belt, her hands on him now so familiar that even though his gut stirred, his groin didn’t. She kept his gaze as she fixed his clothes, her light eyes hooded in some undistinguishable emotion as she then raised her fingers to his hair, fixing the longer strands, smoothing them to the sides. “There,” she said after a minute, leaning up and kissing him lightly, just a brief peck on the corner of his mouth. “That’s better.”

“You ready now?” he asked, trying to sound exasperated to cover the deep pounding in his chest, that emotion he could no longer ignore. It sat at the base of his tongue every time he spoke to her. 

_I fucking love you, Carrie._

“Where’s your jacket?”

“Downstairs.” She moved past him, and he waited patiently as she took each stair with separate steps, his phone buzzing again restlessly in his pocket.

…

When she stepped back outside, Quinn was waiting for her, leaning against the front of the Durango, phone in one hand, cigarette in the other. She felt that tug under her ribs as she watched him pace, exhaling smoke, turning toward her as he heard her footsteps. They had been playing house - there was no other way to put it. She didn’t even know what they were doing - she just knew that it helped ease the ache in her heart. He could have always said no - _no, I don’t want to help you up off the toilet, no I don’t want to make you coffee every morning, no, stop fixing my hair, ironing my clothes, no I can’t be your personal chauffeur because you’re too fat to fit in your car_. But he never did. 

It couldn’t last. Not with the baby coming, especially not now that she was going to Istanbul to run her own station. Peter Quinn was a lot of things, but he was not about to follow her halfway around the world. Let alone with a screaming newborn in tow. Oh, fuck, she was so wholly unprepared for this. The anxiety washed over her, not entirely dulled by the lithium. 

He hung up on his call as she came closer, slipping the phone into his pants pocket as he leaned back against the truck, watching her. 

“Can I have one of those?” she sighed, feeling tired, her brain no longer much interested in the C.I.A. politics between Saul and Lockhart. 

Quinn blanched. “ _No_ ,” he replied pointedly, frowning at her. 

“Oh, just give me one. I won’t _light_ it,” Carrie complained, rolling her eyes briefly. She stood close to him, as close as they allowed themselves in public, and he reached into his pocket, looking down at the paper carton he pulled from it, loosening a cigarette and holding it out for her to take. He looked at her disapprovingly, but she took it anyway, turning away to place it in her mouth. A passing woman gave her a shake of the head and Carrie exhaled in frustration, trying to ignore her, facing back to Quinn.

“Something ailing you?” he asked, a hint of impatience to his voice, knowing there was something she wasn’t saying. She came to a stop next to him, shifting her weight, trying to ease the pain in her hip that was a constant nag lately. Her lower back hurt so she let her shoulders slouch forward, but that only made the baby inside her press on her lungs. She needed to lie down. 

“Lockhart,” she sighed. 

“What’d he do, besides fuck over Saul?” Quinn asked bitterly, smoke escaping from between his teeth. 

“He just gave me Istanbul. Station Chief.” 

Quinn stared at her. “Holy crap.” 

Carrie gave a brief turn of her mouth at his mild words. “I know,” she tiffed, and he recognized the panic that was creeping over her face. She looked tired, bags under her eyes not completely hidden by makeup, her lips a dark red to compensate. She took a deep inhale, looking away from his critical gaze. The anxiety would give her heartburn later, and he’d most likely have to make a 0200 hour trip to the pharmacy to buy antacid. His neck cricked, and he had a fleeting thought that in less than a month, there would be a baby - crying, cooing, shitting, sleeping. 

“That’s bad?” he asked, trying to get whatever was bugging her out in the open. She was started to wig, looking away from him, her legs nervously shifting her weight. 

“ _No_ …” she sighed eventually, her eyebrows raising as her eyes started watering. She pointed to her swollen stomach, her toes tapping in the shoes he had tied for her that morning. “ _This is bad_.” She scoffed nervously, trying to find the humour in it, but falling short, having to look away to keep from crying, biting down on the inside of her lip.

Quinn just gave her a mildly amused look, barely even having to move his face. She had grown so used to his daily mannerisms, so subtle, so telling. “Well, it’s a little late for second thoughts,” he remarked, and although he was clearly trying to lighten her up, it only annoyed her. 

“Yeah, no _shit_.” She wiped her jaw with the edge of her sleeve, her fingertips still clutching on her unlit cigarette. 

“So what’s bad about it?” He watched her process the question, every single doubt evident on her face. He wished he could reach out, take her by the shoulder, stroke her neck and hair - _everything will be fine_. But he didn’t know that. Everything would most likely not be fine - it would probably be a shitshow, and they would be caught in the middle. He swallowed around a lump in his throat, thinking of the latest series of calls that would bring him overseas, waiting for Carrie to speak again. 

“I just didn’t think it _through_ ,” she said finally, defeated, eyes still having trouble keeping his. Her head bobbled and she bit her cheek again, mouth trembling. “I wanted it because of Brody - to have a part of him.” 

_Ah. And there it was_. She would always want Brody. Despite everything, Brody’s shadow was long, and he was still on the losing end. 

“I think… they call that _love_ ,” he said dryly, still not looking away. It didn’t matter where it stemmed from - mania or otherwise - the way she thought of Brody couldn’t be described as anything but. She loved Brody, and where that left him he had no fucking clue. It wasn’t just Brody that died - it was her fantasy, her ideal life that she had planned for them, baby and all. He listened to her, watching her lips move as she talked herself into her own panic. She had never been sure about the baby, he knew that, but they had never had _this_ conversation. But he saw the way she looked at her reflection when she got dressed in the morning, the irritation when a random analyst asked her if she was excited, the whimpering in the early morning when she dreamed of Tehran and Brody and him strung up by the neck. 

Quinn had never mentioned his son to her. The surprise rippled through him when she mentioned it. Fucking Virgil. 

“I fucked it up.” His chest hurt to say those words, and the terrible feeling spread up to his eyeballs, unable to hide that deep agony any longer. He licked his lips, looking away to inhale sharply. He couldn’t stand there anymore, couldn’t look at the misery on her pale face, the longing for Brody, the confusion he couldn’t entirely attribute to hormones. But mostly, he couldn’t stomach the large feeling of inadequacy that pounded on the front of his brain. He was fooling himself - he could never replace him, could never be a father-figure to any child, let alone one that wasn’t even his. “And it would be really sad to see you do the same thing.” His voice shook, but he didn’t take his eyes off Carrie as pity crossed her face. 

That familiar urge to run pushed his back off the truck. He gave her a tight smile, trusting himself only to briefly grasp her shoulder as he passed, a noncommittal gesture between colleagues, not an embrace between lovers. He walked across the pavement as quickly as he could, his phone once again vibrating in his pocket. 

“Hey!” she called after him, before he had even reached the end of the parking lot. “Where are you going? You’re my ride!” 

He pointed at his watch, and she realized that her day wasn’t over, because it wasn’t even noon. She sighed heavily, stepping back and leaning against the front of the truck, its place still warm from Quinn’s quick exit.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whew. Had to get all the fluff out at once. We will now return to our regularly scheduled angst.


	22. 4x00 - Langley Charrette

**4x00 - Langley Charrette**

“Carrie… it’s Quinn. What the fuck?” 

Short, and to the point. It was the only message he would leave on her voicemail. 

She had gone into labour on a Wednesday, when he was in the middle of a marathon meeting involving Lockhart, and the ambassador to Pakistan, and a job he wasn’t really sure he wanted. But she hadn’t called him. He heard it from Saul the next day, when Quinn had phoned him, panicked that Carrie’s townhouse showed no signs of her. Saul hadn’t questioned him.

_“She had the baby… she’s at her sister’s.”_

Saul didn’t need to give him the address. Quinn had driven to Virginia, but that familiar unwelcome feeling was unbearable and he couldn't bring himself to knock on the door, much less cross the street to the house. So he hadn’t even bothered getting out of the truck. He watched the lights flicker through the sister's house, his heart silent, but his stomach churning. She hadn’t called him. But she would come around. Right?

But she didn’t. Her townhouse stayed empty, she did not call, and he spent three nights reading about postpartum depression. 

And then two weeks later, he had received a memo: she had requested him as a transfer to Kabul. Afghanistan. _Like fucking hell he was going back there._ It had taken him a minute to realize that Carrie had requested him because that was where _she_ was going. Not to Istanbul, not with the baby, but to Kabul, where she couldn’t take a child.

He had destroyed the field laptop in front of him, barely had a coherent thought before it was thrown across the room, smashing into a filing cabinet, sending bits of plastic and silicon across the floor. _So much for a shock-proof SSD._

So fuck her.

And then he stormed into Lockhart’s office to inform the Director that he would be going to Islamabad instead.


	23. 4x00 - Kabul Charrette

**4x00 - Kabul Charrette**

He had run into Astrid during the second week in Islamabad. She looked older, blonder, quirking her eyebrow at him as he stared at her from across the conference room. The last time he had seen her was in early 2009, when she had left him at the London airport, unwilling and exasperated. 

She had become a near-nightly habit for over a month. But Carrie had ruined him. He tried not to think about her when he laid next to Astrid, but his mind was prone to games, and every time he shut his eyes, he saw her looking back at him. 

His phone rang one night at 0100, and Astrid groaned loudly. “ _Peter_ , I thought I told you to shut that off-“

“It’s work.” He rolled over and looked at the I.D., a secure line from Afghanistan. It could be anyone at the embassy in Kabul, but his heart pounded the same way it did every time he saw that number. “Hello?” 

“Quinn?”

Her voice did something to him. After nearly two months, he felt his gut twist, and he glanced over his shoulder at Astrid, as if Carrie could see he was in bed with another woman - not that she’d necessarily care. Not after the way they had left things. “Yeah?” he replied, and Astrid looked up at him, sensing his abrupt change of tone, suddenly painfully curious about who was calling him. He had to stand up, couldn’t talk to Carrie with Astrid so close. 

“It’s me.”

“I know.” He grabbed his jeans off the floor, pulling them on, not willing to look back at Astrid. “What’s wrong?”

“I just…” She faded off, and the line went silent. His heart hammered in his throat.

“Carrie?” he asked quietly, hearing Astrid rustling behind him, getting out of bed.

“I’m sorry, I gotta go.” 

“No, Carrie, wait-“

But she was gone, and the line went dead. He stared at the wall before lowering his phone, turning to see Astrid glaring at him. “It was-“

“Get the fuck out of my apartment,” she snapped. 

“Astrid-“

“Don’t you play me, Peter.” Astrid was throwing the remainder of his clothes at him, and he caught a sock in the face. 

“She’s not…” Quinn didn’t even try to finish. He had no excuses, and Astrid knew it.


	24. The Drone Queen

**The Drone Queen**

His voice was carefully neutral. His heart was pounding, his knee was hurting, his chest had closed within an inch of his throat, but he kept it all out of his mouth, out of the words he spoke through the phone. 

“Quinn.” Carrie’s voice was nearly incredulous in return. “Long time.” She gave a light chuff of the tongue and all of a sudden his entire face hurt. The last time they had spoken was that one short phone call nearly five months ago. Since then, he had kept his cell close every night, but every night she didn’t call, until eventually he just started turning the phone off and tossing it on his kitchen counter. The last time he had even seen her was the day before she gave birth, to the baby he would only ever know as a fetus, and not as a child. The child she had left in the States while she lived in a bunker and hunted people by remote control. 

He inhaled, pulling his lips back along his teeth, his gaze following the length of the hallway. “Yeah,” he replied after a beat and was pleased that he kept the sarcasm mostly out of the tone. 

She gave a sigh of frustration, right into his ear, where it did strange things to his tongue, sent a familiar warmth down his chest. “What a clusterfuck, huh?” 

He turned the corner, intent on his office, suddenly feeling like he needed privacy, even though this was under the guise of just a routine call. Martha had asked _him_ to do it, not Sandy - to call the Kabul Station Chief. He wasn’t sure if he was appointed because it was _Carrie_ or because she didn’t trust Sandy. Truthfully, he hadn’t been able to stand it anymore, so many months without speaking to her, _seeing_ her. So he swallowed his pride and dialled the number. “How you holding up?” he asked briskly, to combat the emotions rattling around his brain. 

She sighed again. “It was a _Taliban_ spokesperson… I’m trying not to get too worked up about it.” 

“Yeah, we got protestors outside the embassy here.” He passed one of the clerks, and the man gave him a wary eye. Quinn ignored him as he entered his office, shutting the door quietly behind him. Carrie was still talking about the Taliban, about mosques, and orphans, and some PC bullshit about staying positive. He let her voice settle in his skull as he peered out his office window, the crowd by the gate seemingly bigger than it was 20 minutes ago. She sounded different than he remembered - cooler, more technical. Maybe he just liked to think that she hadn’t been that way with him, not in the end, not when they were practically sharing a schedule, a house, a bed, a little life nestled between them. 

A life that wasn’t his, and that she apparently didn’t want.

“You still there?” she asked suddenly.

He sighed, letting his hand drop from the window, looking back into his austere office. “Yeah, I’m here.” Because even after seven months of silence between them, he would always be fucking there. 

She started talking again, quickly, speaking to him like she was in charge right now, and not 500km away, merely connected by a shitty satellite signal. “Listen to me, Quinn. Worst case scenario: it _was_ a wedding. Obviously _not_ ideal. But Dande Darpa Khel’s about as deep in the tribal area as you can _get_ -“

He turned from his view of the protestors, glancing at his computer as it booted, his head trying to wrap around exactly what she was getting at. “I… I’m not following you.” At least, he hoped he wasn’t following her. Because she could not be suggesting what he thought she was. His mouth was dry and he stared at his strategy chart on the wall, looking at the map. _Kabul_. She was right there, right across several hundred kilometres of mountains and desert. 

“Who’s gonna risk going in to verify anything? _Nobody_ , that’s who.” She gave a breathy exhale of light derision. “We’re bulletproof on this.”

Cold. 

Her voice was different because it was cold, devoid of something he once thought he found. It didn’t even matter why, it just washed over him like someone had thrown him back into the Alaskan tundra. He felt it through the whites of his eyeballs and into his cheekbones, even as the warm sun streamed in through the window, hitting him on the side of the face. But was it because _she_ had changed, or was it him that had changed? Those months apart, more than a year since Caracas, since Javadi and Fariba, since sleeping with her that first time in a house he no longer knew. In a life that seemed farther and farther away. 

“Bulletproof?” Quinn asked, his voice almost shaking at her words. They were not fucking bulletproof, they were exposed, vulnerable, showing their backs to an enemy that wouldn’t hesitate to mow them down. All their most sensitive operations were going to come under scrutiny, and they were about to become targets. She had dropped a bomb on the heads of dancing children and there would be blow-back from all sides.

“Completely,” Carrie replied, sounding so assured he wanted to yell at her. The line went still as he couldn’t think of a single thing to say in return, to cover the depth of emotions that were pounding through his chest. He chewed on his lip, still staring at that little yellow star on the map. _Kabul_. He had wanted to say something - _I missed you, I hate you, we’re fucked, you’re certifiable, what did you name the baby?_

But his throat wouldn’t open, his voice wouldn’t catch, so he let his arm drop, his thumb pressing the button to end the call. He hadn’t had a drink in almost 10 months, and his mouth was suddenly desperate for it. 

…

She barely touched him. Her hands landed limply on his shoulders and so every previous intention he had fell from his arms with a painful wince. He gave her a light pat, a gentle squeeze over her blazer, even though his palms itched for her hair, her hips, her neck. His fingers lingered on the cap of her arm before he had to pull away. 

“Welcome to Pakistan.” He stood back to look at her, though she seemed exactly the same, down to her slight irritation, that vibrating energy. She was back to pre-pregnancy slim, although her face was sallow, tired and pale from living inside an office, inside her ops room. 

“Uh, can we sit for ten minutes?” she asked, her eyes everywhere around the station but on him. “You give me the lay of the land?” She looked up at him then, all business, bright gaze wanting everything exactly then. 

“Sure.” And so he bought her coffee, one cream and two sugar, and sat in the cafeteria area across from her on comically red chairs. She took a long drink from her cup and he watched the swallow in her throat, leaning forward to put his arms on the table, as if his fingers needed to be closer. She lowered the cup after a minute, catching him looking and gave a shrug.

“Thanks. Long morning.”

Quinn felt his lips twitch, but Carrie had already launched into a discussion before he could so much as grimace. 

“So where does Martha stand on this? What am I gonna walk into?” she asked, placing one hand over the other and leaning forward eagerly. 

“The ambassador’s out front with the locals on this, so she’s pissed.” He gave Carrie a hard look, but she was chewing her lip, looking somewhere over his left shoulder.

“Well, I can’t say I _blame_ her - Sandy’s intel was _good_ until now…” She glanced at him, frowning in thought, a one-track mind. “What do you think happened?”

He answered to some degree, a vague complaint about his Station Chief and his ineptitude. But Quinn kept one eye on Carrie, how she sat, how she looked at him or didn’t look at him, that expression on her face. She had become difficult to read, to gauge. He had thought, once, that he might’ve known her. But now… as she spoke of Sandy and assets and dropping fire, he felt more uncertain than he ever had. She gave a frustrated sigh, glancing over her shoulder, almost as if she didn’t want to look at him anymore.

It slipped from his lips before he could really help it. “Yeah, well, I know what that’s like,” he said, quietly, but not quietly enough. Carrie shifted in her chair, not getting it, not recognizing that emotion that he tried to mask on his face, in his voice, in the tension of his shoulders. 

“What?” she asked, positively fucking clueless.

He looked straight at her. “Checking _names_ off a kill list for a living.”

She gave a half-roll of the eyes, like he was making a joke, as if he wasn’t confessing to the hundreds of names that weighed him down every second of his life. Her eyebrows went up-down quickly, and his jaw tightened at her flippant movements, how casual she was about the whole thing. She had left her life, her baby, on the other side of the planet, and yet here she was, still in front of him, keeping her distance like nothing had ever happened. 

“It’s a job,” she shrugged, like she was referring to mopping floors or flipping burgers. He tried painfully to see past her composure, but her eyes were still, her mouth soft.

“Doesn’t bother you?” Quinn asked aggressively, leaning forward, ignoring the jumping of his knees under the table. He just needed her to open up - show him one _fucking_ tiny bit of warmth, a sign that he wasn’t fucking crazy, that he remembered her as she still was. His bottom lip shuddered as he waited that painful second as she glanced around the room. She gave a non-committal shrug, a brief tilt of her head that he interpreted as a shake of _no_.

“What about when it goes wrong?” he pressed more impatiently. 

Carrie closed her mouth from where it had opened at his questioning, looking back at his unwavering gaze. “Doesn’t happen that often,” she said, tilting her head. Quinn’s tongue was practically stuck to the roof of his mouth. His coffee was long-gone, and he briefly thought about how whiskey would taste right now. About how it would erase this god awful conversation.

“But… it _did_ this time.” 

It was as if Carrie and Sandy were both fed from the same spoon of bullshit. She quoted, nearly verbatim, the excuse Sandy had relayed to Martha the day before. Quinn hurt everywhere as she talked. When had that pounding behind his eyeballs returned? His forehead felt as if it was melting through his sinuses, and he had to keep his lips together to prevent it from dripping into his burning throat. 

She was so fucking full of shit. 

“I guess Istanbul was too tame for you,” he said finally, a moderately lame response compared to what other words were on the tip of his tongue. 

Carrie gave him an amused scoff, blissfully ignoring every intention behind his words. “Well, I was looking forward to it, but Kabul opened up.”

_Like fuck it did._

He knew that she had asked for it, that she went to Lockhart and schemed her way from one country to another. He wasn’t the idiot she decided to take him for, when she sat across from him, all teeth and shiny blonde hair, claiming money and _action_ , instead of isolation and addiction. 

“But you can’t bring _dependents_ ,” he practically interrupted. 

She froze at that, the smile fading from her face. The little Irish shit inside of him gloated that he had caught her in her act, in her lie: that Kabul had nothing to do with their life in the States, with the baby that she had born, with being so utterly fucking terrified that she had flown to one of the world’s most turbulent cities just to avoid it all. 

But Carrie caught herself. She had to glance away from him a second, over her shoulder again, before looking back, that smile falsely bright on her face. “I wanted to bring _you_ ,” she said, changing the subject, turning the tables on him. “Why didn’t you come?”

He was surprised at her question, that she even had the gall to ask it. _What exactly did she think he would say? That he couldn’t stand the facade anymore? That he had spent every night for two weeks driving by her townhouse to see if she had returned from her sister’s? That he had read three separate baby books, to offer her help in raising a child? That he had devoted way too much time and energy to the fantasy that was him and Carrie, and he was all tapped out?_

_That he wouldn’t help her abandon a child to be raised by somebody else._

_Because he had already done that once._

_And he knew what it was to be abandoned._

…

There was a mass of bodies blocking the street. A throng of yelling, stomping, fighting bodies. 

“Quinn, go!” Carrie urged from the backseat. He barely even heard her, throwing the Ford into reverse and gunning it, but the vehicle had been lifted, the tires spinning uselessly merely centimetres off the ground. 

“I can’t. There’s another weapon in the back.” He glanced over the seat to where Carrie was scrambling down along the floor. Sandy was on the phone, frantically dialling the base, with a window of furious Pakistanis at his elbow. They were starting to beat in the car with sticks and pipes, and Quinn felt panic rising along his throat, his fingers familiar on the gun, even though it had been over a year since he’d used one. He gripped it tightly, torn between some sort of twisted nostalgia and horror, because there were 100 against three. 

“Ask him how far out the squad is,” he barked at Sandy, once again looking back to see Carrie’s position, but she was still searching for the gun he had stashed under the seat, claiming it wasn’t there, despite the fact that he had seen it there _just that morning_. They had thirty seconds, tops.

But then glass was flying and bodies were swarming Sandy’s door, men fighting for hold on him, crawling through the smashed window, trying to grab anything they could. Feet were flying, fists were thrown, Sandy was struggling, and Quinn’s reflexes were screaming. It smelled like sweat, like feet and dirt and piss. Like Caracas, like the last time. And so he pulled the trigger, once, to save the Station Chief. But where the man died, five took his place, getting a better grip on Sandy’s legs. They were beating heavier on the other windows now, and Quinn felt his adrenaline smack straight into an overwhelming sense of protection as he heard Carrie’s shatter. He looked back to see her spread out on the seat, the crowd so close.

Carrie. Bright eyes, smirk, teeth, round stomach, freckled chest. Cursing, laughing, thinking, yelling. High. Low. Carrie.

_I fucking love you, Carrie._

The bullet sounded off before Quinn had even completely realized what he was doing. The man whose hands were straining for Carrie was thrown back from the vehicle, dead. 

But beside him, Sandy was dragged from the car, screeching. The fog in Quinn’s brain lifted and he reached forward, trying helplessly to grab the back of Sandy’s jacket, but the man was gone, out into the mob. He was as good as dead, and Quinn immediately reassessed their position, searching for a way out, so that Carrie at least, would be safe. He heard the sound from the street - the blow of a pipe to the skull - as Carrie tried to propel herself past him. He threw out his arm, blocking her exit and shoved her back into the seat with a push of his palm.

“Carrie, no!”

She stared at him with wild eyes, blood smeared over her cheek. “We can’t leave him!”

“He’s gone! There’s nothing more we can do, now _get down_!” At his command, she ducked, although the gun he pointed in her direction might have helped. The rear window broke and the men holding the back wheels were forced to the sides. Quinn stomped his foot on the gas and they flew backwards, through the edges of the crowd, leaving Sandy a bloody crumpled pulp amidst the Pakistanis who killed him. 

His mind was blank. The sirens didn’t even jolt him as he went through the motions, turning corners: gas, break, wheel. He was vaguely aware of the signs of mild shock - his blood pressure dropping, cold sweat down his chest, his mouth and tongue dry like sandpaper. Carrie was silent, and he barely noticed her. Their Station Chief was just murdered in the streets, and it could very well have been them. 

He didn’t realize they were at the embassy, until he had parked the car and the door slammed as Carrie left the backseat. Her familiar heels clicked on the asphalt. His didn’t even try to move, but his hands fell heavy to his lap, his gaze unfocused on the tunnel ahead. Her footsteps paused, then reversed direction, impatiently coming for him. He fumbled for the window control, and the stale air hit him, and with it a light wave of nausea. 

The boy. Fariba. Sandy. His hands full of their blood, dripping from his wrists, splashing on his face, burning through the backs of his eyes. 

“Come on,” Carrie said abruptly, stopping outside the car.

“Just give me a minute,” he replied, noticing how stiff his neck was when he tried to turn it to look at her. He didn’t bother, but raised a finger instead, waiting for the nausea to subside and his blood pressure to come back up. 

“We don’t have a minute,” Carrie interrupted, her voice stern and even angry. “The ambassador needs to be briefed.” Was she mad at him? For what? She kept talking, her voice almost as severe as he knew her face would be. He barely listened, until her words replayed in his frozen brain.

The crick in his neck released and he looked over at her, as she paced in annoyance beside the car. “What do you mean _story_?” he asked, confused. There was only one story - they had been mobbed and outnumbered, Sandy was pulled from the vehicle, and they had just barely made it out alive. 

She came to a defiant stop, staring at him from merely a foot away. His pulse had started to race, and it pounded in the back of his throat. “You _know_ what I mean,” Carrie replied. “We could’ve done _more_ back there.” 

He openly gawked at her, his heartbeat easily flying up into his jaw, through to the very edges of his eyebrows. “You kidding me?” She glared back at him, drops of dried blood on her left cheek, pupils still wide, and utterly arrogant. 

“ _No_ , I’m not,” she retorted. “It was _within_ our power.” She blinked insolently, clearly blaming _him_ for Sandy’s death. Quinn’s blood pressure rose all at once, and then some. The fucking nerve of her - he had just shot three men - killed at least two, to save Sandy, to save _her_ ungrateful ass, and she thought he could’ve done more. What had she expected him to do? 

He exhaled angrily, his hands clenching, his stomach twisting, rage barreling down his nostrils like he hadn’t felt in a number of blissful months. “You know what?” he spat. “Fuck you.”

She stared at him, slightly affronted. It pissed him off more, that dumb look on her face. It made him want to pitch the car door through the fucking wall. He had always done _everything_ for her - retreated from Brody, fought for her in the hospital, kept her safe from harm through the utter kluge that was the Javadi interrogation, stayed an active agent because she had nearly begged him to. And then he had loved her. He knew that now. She had clearly used him, pregnant and broken-hearted over that god damn terrorist, but he had stayed because he had no other choice. 

But she had left. Their short-lived intimacy had ended with her transfer to Kabul and the cold, official request that he join her. 

“No, really, Carrie. _Fuck. You_.” 

He’s not sure she got the entendre behind it, that every ounce of anger pounding through him was not just for Sandy, but for her, and that baby she had forgotten. Something on her face suggested that she did. He couldn’t stand to look at the hurt in her expression, those lines between her faint eyebrows, the bags beneath her eyes. He briefly looked away, but that just made him angrier, that he even gave so much as a flying fuck what she felt. “What the _hell_ is wrong with you!?” he continued, his mouth working without use of his brain. 

“What is wrong with _you_?!” Carrie snapped back. They stared at each other, each of them trembling with anger. Quinn could hardly contain the frustration and pure misery that he felt looking at her. Carrie abruptly took a step back, heading for the embassy. “Five minutes,” she ordered. “Inside.”

She had another thing coming if she thought she could order him around. He threw open the Ford’s door, forgetting the vehicle’s disastrous appearance as he strode up to the embassy and pushed his way inside. Carrie was on the other side of the foyer, walking away from him, turning a corner to where the women’s washroom was. He ignored her, fixating on the elevators opposite, punching the up button as hard as he could, and then a few more times just because. Every muscle fibre was twitching, his knee jumping, jaw clenching, head pounding. 

Quinn landed in his living quarters, slamming the door after him, intent to get good and fucking drunk. He had to have alcohol somewhere. He was aware, as he ruffled through cabinets and looked in obscure drawers he had never even noticed, let alone opened, that he was about to reach a new low. His first foster father had been a deadbeat alcoholic, spent more money on cheap whiskey than he did on the lights and power. The irony was almost too much to bear, especially now that he let out a frustrated yell, his apartment so dry it was practically the Sahara. 

He had to get that sound out of his brain. That crunching of Sandy’s skull. Carrie’s desperate gasp as her window was bludgeoned in. And that expression on her face, that look of superiority. She thought she was better than him. Maybe she was… because even if she had killed thousands by drone, he had killed hundreds by hand. 

Desperate, he headed for the bathroom. 

_We could’ve done more back there._

It played over and over in his hilarious brain. Good for a fucking laugh, that was. 

Quinn wrenched open the medicine cabinet above the sink, where a handful of bottles sat. Ones he had never even opened. He dumped a pile from one into his hand, searching for the little pink _5401_. He took three, and only made it back to his bed before the ambien hit.

…

Someone was slamming their fist into his skull. _Jesus_ , it was so _loud_. 

Quinn rolled over, blinking his eyes open. It was so bright… the sun streaming in through the high window, the curtains still forced wide open. Groaning, he realized that the impatient hammering was not so much in his forehead, but in the adjacent hallway. He forced himself onto his elbows, noticing that he had drooled all over the sheet his face had been smashed into. He wiped his mouth off with the cup of his hand as the apartment door swung open. 

“What the _fuck_?” he complained, blinking bleerily over his shoulder at Carrie as she barged in. “ _How_ did you get in here?”

She held up a set of keys, giving him a look that was so similar to concern. His stomach rolled. “I’ve been knocking for _ten_ minutes, Quinn. I had to go get a marine-“

“Shit.” He struggled to push himself up, the ambien still heavy in his system. 

“What the hell, Quinn?” she snapped, coming to a stop in front of him. She was still wearing the same suit, so night hadn’t passed - the sunlight suggested that it was only early afternoon. He managed to set his feet on the floor, but his brain swam, not ready to go vertical just yet. “I had to brief the ambassador _alone_. Where the hell — have you been up here this whole time?” She put her hands on her hips, glaring at him in exasperation. 

He didn’t reply, rubbing his palm over his head as he watched his knees buckle in towards each other. He didn’t need her there, lecturing him. He didn’t even _want_ her there. He wanted to be as miserable as possible, and that meant he had to do it fantastically alone. She took his silence as petulance. 

“Fine. Well, they’ve retrieved Sandy, so we’re flying back to the States in 45 minutes.” She glanced at her wrist, as if they were already late. 

“What?” Quinn blinked up at her, and he must’ve looked so strung out, that she took pity on him. She sighed, tucking her hair behind her ears and stepping forward. She pulled at the legs of her pants, slacking the material, before she dropped next to him on the side of the bed. It creaked just to spite him.

“We’ve gotta go.” She gave him a tight smile, what he assumed was meant to reassure him. He looked down, clasping his hands between his knees, feeling the heat off her close proximity. Saliva pooled in his mouth, his chest feeling heavy and warm, spreading south through his gut. She shifted, hesitating before lifting her hand and placing it lightly on his shoulder. His heart kick-started, his mind clearing as he glanced at her. She gave him a small smile, her leg pressing against his, but he only felt betrayal when she leaned in, her eyes lidded in the way that only made him uncomfortable. He sat stiffly as her nose lightly nudged along his cheekbone, her lips lightly kissing the edge of his mouth. It was purely instinct that made him turn - his reflexes remembering that shape of her face, the feel of her mouth, the slick of her tongue. But when her lips touched his, he couldn’t stand it, even as her breasts pushed along his arm. She smelled different, like a new shampoo, and he broke their makeshift kiss, unable to stomach the falsity of it. 

“Get out, Carrie…” he complained, standing up to get as far away as he could, not trusting his body to follow the actions of his voice. Did she really think that would work again? It had worked before, after all. She just had to use his fucking cock against him, it was easy, it was predictable. The lust was edged out once again by anger. 

“Quinn-“

“Would you _just_ get the _fuck_ out?” he yelled, surprising even himself. The effort of the rage hurt his gums, and the edges of his vision blackened. She blanched, looking to the floor to hide the surprise, the sheepishness on her face. He was fucking done.

“ _Okay_ …” She pushed herself up, not looking at him. She strode across the apartment, intent to finally just _leave_. “Be on the tarmac in 15,” she said curtly before the door closed after her, not looking back. He caught the last swish of her hair.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So my updates won't be as frequent as they once were. Alas, there is life. Or some semblance of it.


	25. Trylon and Perisphere

**Trylon and Perisphere**

He had nearly forgotten what a hangover felt like, after almost a year of careful sobriety, after not so much as an Advil, just that small helping of Ambien in Pakistan. And now he figured death was the easier choice - if it came between that and peeling his lids off his eyeballs. It was disorienting, scrambling through what seemed to be layers of blankets before his hands reached his head. 

When he finally blinked his eyes open, the ceiling was unfamiliar, nondescript yellow-beige, further away than it used to be. Was it a rock that was digging into his back? Why was he so god damn cold? Why did his legs and arms and groin ache like he was 25 again, when his months were split between death and sex. 

Because he was lying on the tile floor, the thin blanket from the futon wrapped around his waist, no pillow or mattress or memories to comfort him. And when he turned his head to the side, he looked directly into another face. He flinched, startled, but the woman was still asleep, long red hair curling over her rounded face, presumably unclothed except for a bright pink bra. Confused, he rubbed his eyes, unsure about her - she wasn’t exactly his usual type. He stared for a long moment, willing himself to remember her, to remember the night before, and how they had ended up on his living room floor. He remembered the corner store, the clink of the liquor bottles, the smell of chlorine in the outside pool. He sort of remembered the woman, the movement, the dreams of war and the feeling of sand and the look in Carrie’s eyes --

_Carrie._

_I fucking love you, Carrie._

That automatic thought. The first coherent thought Quinn had had every morning for what felt like years, but couldn’t even be more than one. Guilt washed over him, for lots of shit, but mostly for the woman beside him and the woman sleeping in her sister’s house, with her forgotten baby. What had he told her, the redhead, to convince her that he was worth it? Because there was nothing redeemable about him these days: liar, killer, drunk. 

The redhead was still, too still. It was uncomfortable - to stare at her - when he didn’t know her, didn’t have a file to understand her, couldn’t spy on her for days before actually having to speak to her. He shook his wrist, the blood rushing to his fingers as he lifted a hand to the space between her nose and mouth, searching for the reassurance of her breath. When it came warm and damp, the relief was practically embarrassing, and he forced himself into a seat, scrubbing his palm over his cropped hair and down his face. He didn’t have to smell himself to know he needed a shower. But what he really wanted was a drink.

…

Fuck, the rage had felt good. Familiar and hot in his teeth, up his nose, down his elbows and to the bottoms of his feet, finding the tic in his groin on the way through. It had been so long, and when he gave in, he didn’t even realize he couldn’t stop it until there was blood pooling on the plate of waffles, and the napkin dispenser was a second away from a murder weapon identification.

They hadn’t deserved it - just a couple of frat boys up too early, not enough beer, maybe too many Kappa Alpha Theta, not enough peers to take them down a peg. But the dopamine couldn’t lie, and Quinn could still feel it pounding in his forehead as he paced in his newly-acquired jail cell. He had gone willingly, if not angrily - but not at the two idiots, not at the redhead who stared at him in fear, her hand clutching the back of his flannel shirt anxiously. The cops had knocked him around a little, pinning him to the floor, cuffing him way too tightly, pushing his face into the dirty diner linoleum. 

He hadn’t been in a jail cell since he was 14, when the local beat cops had rounded up him and Jimmy Benson squatting in a rail yard. It had only been an hour before they found his foster parents to come and disappointedly retrieve him. At least this cell had a payphone - too bad he didn’t have any coins.

“Hey!” he yelled down the corridor, wrapping his fingers around a bar on either side of his head. “Hey, can I get a quarter?”

The bald, fat, police clerk at the other end didn’t bother looking up at him. They were treating him like a thug, heavy on the pointed silence, because they didn’t know any better, because he had just pummelled a couple of kids in a 24-hour-breakfast diner. So he had decided to act like one. “Hey!” He tried to rattle the bars, but these ones were more secure than his previous cell, and they didn’t budge an inch. “Gimme a god damn quarter! You want me in here all day?”

The clerk still didn’t move, but he did look up as one of his colleagues turned the corner. The man stomped toward him, glowering, and Quinn glared back at him, not moving from his stance near the cell’s edge. “You quit fucking yelling or you’ll be in there the next week,” the cop scowled. But he flicked a coin in Quinn’s direction and Quinn reached through the bars to snatch it from the air. He didn’t wait for the man to throw out a few more insults, but walked to the corner of the cell and put the quarter into the payphone.

He had spent the last hour thinking about it - who. He had a lot of numbers memorized, but not a lot of people to call, and in the end, there was only one choice. He punched in the digits, staring at the concrete wall, waiting for Carrie to answer her cell - _please, let her answer her cell._

“Yeah?” Her voice was clipped and noncommittal, not recognizing the number on his end. 

“It’s Quinn. I need bail.”

“Are-are you alright?” she asked in concern.

“Yeah, fine. I’m at Metropolitan.” 

There was a brief hesitation of Carrie’s shock. “Yeah, I-I’m on my way.” And then the line went dead. He sighed heavily, dropping the phone back onto the receiver, and then sat down to wait. 

It took her nearly 30 minutes. She gave him a look of disapproval as she walked down the corridor towards him. But there was also a twist of amusement behind her walk as she came to a stop infront of the cell. 

“They’re letting you go.”

Quinn immediately stood, surprised that it was going to be that easy. “No charges?” He took a step toward her, trying not to feel anything, but just the soft tone of her voice raised the hair on the back of his neck. It was hard to push the guilt away - the newer guilt, the death of Sandy, the tense flight back to the States, the night before and what he might have done or said or even _thought_ when he had started down this fucking pathetic road. 

He was getting the hell out. He had figured that out about seven minutes before Carrie waltzed down the jail’s hallway. It just couldn’t be about her anymore - he had become bitter and jaded and now too soft to make judgement calls. People were dead, Carrie was complacent, and Christ, he had become a stereotype - war vet, PTSD, nightmares and shaking and violent episodes. His entire body fidgeted with frustration as she claimed her use of _that_ card.

“So what happened?” she asked, sounding almost concerned. She _was_ concerned - Quinn had always been slightly unhinged, but always manageable, always collectable. Now he was twitching and shifting, not looking at her. Maybe she hadn’t been far off, claiming PTSD, sweet-talking the older cop on duty to cut the Iraq vet a break. She had also had to play the CIA card. 

“Nothing, it was stupid,” Quinn said quickly, still avoiding her gaze. She frowned at his actions, at how uncomfortable he was with her now. Not that she didn’t really blame him, after the way things had gone down when Frannie was born. She hadn’t _meant_ to leave him like that - it was Maggie who insisted she stay with her, and then as soon as they did, she had to get out. The anxiety had hit her, leaving her nearly incapable, and she didn’t answer his calls, his emails, just threw herself into getting the hell away from the US as fast as possible. How could he have even wanted her? She had _baggage_ \- a little baby from the dead man that she tried to forget, a baby that would always be a strangeness between them, because she wasn’t his, down to the hair on her head. It was _different_ with the baby around, a difference that she knew he wouldn’t be able to stand. 

The request for him in Kabul had been a last-ditch effort, to show him that she hadn’t forgotten him. But the request was never accepted, and three days later, Saul told her that he was bound for Pakistan instead. It had hurt more than she expected. 

“Are you okay?” Carrie asked. He looked like hell, hungover at least, maybe more. His face was sallow, and he smelled faintly of alcohol, as if he had tried to scrub it off but it was now in his very sweat. 

“I thought I was,” Quinn replied, still twitching, blinking heavily at her, “until I found myself beating the shit out of some idiot for no reason - _almost_ no reason.” She looked at the collar of his shirt, where his skin had broken into red blotches by the base of his throat, realizing that he had lost weight again. She remembered him from last year, filled out and muscular, hair long enough that she had felt the need to fix it every morning. It had been happiness, hadn’t it? Even when she was so distraught, Quinn had made her happy. 

She couldn’t think about it any longer, not that Quinn yelling at the desk clerk behind her made it any easier. There was Sandy’s funeral, and a hunch she had about Harris and Lockhart and _accountability_ and this whole god damn mess.

…

“Here’s fine,” Quinn said, pointing to the edge of the street.

“Quinn, I can take you to the _door_ ,” she complained, taking one hand off the wheel to gesture in his direction.

“ _Carrie_ -“

“I’m taking you to the door,” she said, the words annoyingly final. He sighed in frustration, his lips pressing down tightly, jaw twitching. He watched the road as she took the turn a bit too fast and his stomach circled by his ribs, his mouth dry, trying not to imagine a hoard of angry Pakistanis charging around the next corner and chucking a few flaming molotovs in their direction. He grabbed the chicken handle by his ear, the Jeep swerving around a lone pedestrian, but no angry jihadists in sight. 

“It’s a shitty apartment building, Carrie. There’s no front door-“

“ _Jesus_ , Quinn. Then I’ll drop you off in the parking lot.” She peered impatiently out the front window, before glancing over at him, not even noticing that he was holding on with all ten fingers. “Is that it?” 

He gave a silent nod, but she didn’t even wait for his admission, pulling into the parking lot to the right, it already half-full of rusted cars circa 1993. She came to a stop, looking around the derelict buildings with interest. Quinn couldn’t stand to have her sitting there, probably judging him, for any longer, so he plucked his fingers from their grip on the upholstery and unbuckled his seat belt. 

“Thanks,” he said, taking a chance, looking over at her.

She was still looking out the window somewhere by his right shoulder and he glanced back to see what she was looking at. The redhead apartment manager was walking by the pool and Quinn felt that uncomfortable guilt blossom in his throat. The woman had been patient with him, sweet even, and he had shown her his true colours in a sudden fit. He hoped it didn’t show on his face - couldn’t stand the thought of Carrie seeing her, make conclusions that would be annoyingly accurate, about him and her and the stench of scotch that he could smell under his shirt. As if feeling their gaze, the redhead glanced over to the lot, and he saw the frown of concern and recognition dawn on her face. 

“Are you sure you’ll be alright?” Carrie asked, interrupting his current self-loathing.

He cleared his throat, hand moving to the door handle. “Yeah, see you later.” He threw open the Jeep’s door, and had started to move one leg out when she grabbed his remaining hand. 

“Quinn.” Her eyes were glassy and she seemed to be about to say something that he wasn’t sure he wanted to hear, not now, not anymore. When he tried to tug his hand back, she leaned over and gave him a very light kiss on the cheek. His mouth watered, but the right side of his body was already moving out the door, away from Carrie and the pull of every inch of his blood toward her. Away from the past 20 years and that part of his life.

The redhead was gone as he shut the car door, and Carrie waited a brief second before pulling away, much slower than she had screeched in just moments before. He took a few slow steps toward the building, watching as she turned back onto the street. He paused by a small tree, hiding, just in case she came back. When it seemed she was actually gone, he stepped back out onto the sidewalk, intent on the liquor store a block away. His apartment had been drunk dry the night before and he was committed to it now, even looking forward to it - to getting so plastered he couldn’t see straight.


	26. Shalwar Kameez

**Shalwar Kameez**

“Are the two of you romantically involved?”

Maybe he answered too quickly. “What?” he spat, staring at Dr. Byatt, hoping his face was convincing in thinly-veiled disbelief. 

_Don’t think about her. Don’t let her name hit the back of his throat - don’t don’t - Carrie. Fuck!_

“Answer.” She raised her eyebrows at him. “Please,” she added.

_Carrie. Carrie. In his arms, in his bed, under him, on top of him. Smiling, yelling, screaming, crying, panting against his temple, hips rolling in his hands-_

His pulse had risen into his throat, angry and hot as his teeth ached. He knew that it wasn’t _really_ the Dr.’s question - she had a fucking script in front of her, for Christ’s sake, written by exactly one man - but he fought the urge to kick the table in anyway. And Dar Adal, somehow, knew it - he had loaded the question, and Quinn was fucking it up just as he had intended. 

He leaned forward, unable to contain the misplaced spite. “I don’t see what that has to do with anything-“

“Let me be the judge of that,” Dr. Byatt interrupted, her voice rippling with humour. _Fuck._ He had given it away. He was trained _better_ than that - to hold his emotions on his sleeve, in his voice, written on his god damn forehead. He had been played, coyly taken advantage of to expose his one lingering weak spot. That thought smoothed over his face and he bit lightly on his bottom lip, rolling his restraint back in.

“You know what?” He looked from the doctor to the bubble camera that was attached to the ceiling. There were probably others that would watch the video later, but right now, there was definitely just one person in the view room. “Fuck this.” He pushed his chair back, standing from the oval table. Dr. Byatt didn’t say anything, sitting there like the trained dog she was, as he stormed over to the door and exited into the hallway. 

He had only made it to the other end when Dar Adal showed up around an upcoming corner. “Peter,” he admonished, holding his hands out. Quinn’s lingering hangover pounded through his fingertips and for one second, he thought he would be sick. He could taste the bile in the back of his throat, feel the sweat break at his hairline, and when he took a step to the left to avoid Dar, the man took an equal step, blocking his exit.

“You know you just failed that evaluation.”

_Of course he fucking failed the evaluation. He had pointedly decided to not answer the question._

“Why do you care?” Quinn glared across at him. 

“Because you are still one of _mine_.” Dar levelled him with a firm frown, then reached out and grabbed Quinn by the arms, his fingernails finding his biceps through his shirt. “And you have _got_ to pull yourself together-“

Quinn pulled back abruptly, not about to listen to another lecture by someone he didn’t give a shit about anymore. When he tried again to step around Dar, the man hesitated for a split second, but ultimately let him pass. He was only a few steps away when he called after him.

“Don’t let this ruin your career, Peter! Don’t give up _everything_ we’ve worked for-“

“Go fuck yourself,” Quinn yelled over his shoulder. There wasn’t a reply, and he didn’t chance a look back, because now his mind was intent on a bottle of Schnapps that he had left stashed in his kitchen cabinet.

…

He couldn’t stop watching it. Every angle, every video - replaying that crucial moment when Sandy was pulled from the car over and over. Dar Adal had been right, which just made it that much worse. Even through the mass of people and the shaky filming, it had been obvious. He had looked behind his shoulder, lessened his grip on Sandy to ensure that Carrie was alright. And then Sandy was gone, and then he was dead, brain left on the curb. 

He poured himself another drink, the last of the Glenfiddich. Behind him, the apartment manager stepped out of the back bedroom, and he immediately ALT+TABed the window, instead staring at an empty Word document. “Hey, Peter, you okay?”

His eyebrow twitched, and he blinked heavily, rubbing his palms into his eye sockets. He didn’t reply, his growing irritation at her presence leaving guilt in its wake. He had enjoyed her company, at first. She was warm, soft, and even funny - the sex was fine, he was usually drunk - but he still couldn’t really remember how they met, and she just sort of shrugged when he mentioned it. It left an unsettled feeling in his gut. 

“Drink?” he asked her, pouring her one from a new bottle before she could reply.

“Uh, sure.” She took the seat across from him as he pounded back his own refreshened glass. She didn’t drink hers, instead turning it in her hands, quietly watching the shimmer of the liquid. When he reached again for the bottle, she shifted, hesitating before speaking. “Y’know, maybe you should take it easy-“

“What are you, my fucking mother?” he snapped, his head pounding from the video and the realization of what had actually happened, not to mention nearly killing Dar Adal via chokehold. She flinched and he froze. “Aw, shit, I’m sorry-“

“It-it’s fine.” She stared at her glass as her chin quivered slightly. 

“It’s been a long day.”

They were silent for a long while. He watched her casually, every part of her rounded and smooth. She wasn’t even a comparison to Carrie, who was so jagged and sharp. What was he even doing with her, with this red-headed woman who he knew nothing about, except her preference for dip-‘ems and PBR. 

_Distraction. Self-serving distraction. How fucking low could he even get._

“You don’t have to stay,” he said aloud, his voice vibrating strangely in his jaw. 

“You want me to leave?” She raised watery eyes on him and instead of compassion, he was struck with annoyance. 

“I don’t need anymore god damn pity, is all.” He slammed the glass down, reaching again for the bottle. “You don’t need to stick around cause you feel sorry.” He threw back another shot of whiskey, trying to dull the remainder of the Islamabad video. He was starting to realize he just wanted to be alone - in miserable solitude like he was used to, not with the redhead - the woman he had used.

“I don’t-“

“What the fuck do you even _want_?” he snapped, cutting her off, his minimized YouTube window blinking orange at him, asking him to continue viewing. 

“N-nothing-“

“I didn’t sign on for a babysitter. I didn’t _ask_ for this-“ He actually meant the Group, the CIA, Carrie and the clusterfuck in the street, but the woman clearly figured he meant _her_ instead. He was starting to get sloppy drunk, mixing up his words and thoughts, his forehead somewhere below his chin. 

“I’m sorry,” the redhead said, voice shaking. “I didn’t mean to - you were so drunk, I didn’t-“

Somewhere in the back of his still-functioning brain, Quinn felt confused. He considered Carrie - she would judge him for this. He thought about her walking in then, of her smiling and laughing, and being so undeniably _alive_. She would be smooth in his arms, light in his lap, with blonde hair in his face and her fingernails digging into the back of his neck. He missed her. It hadn’t even been a week and he was sick with it.

The landlady was still talking, “-and I saw you by the pool and you needed help to get back here, and well…”

He had a sudden memory then, of the redhead - him falling onto the couch and his head lolling to the side. She was standing in front of him, and even though he had been basically 90% scotch, he remembered thinking that she had left him to sleep it off. But then she hadn’t left, and had kissed him abruptly. It was shock that he felt again in his chest, the memory heavy. He had just assumed he had initiated it, had pushed himself on her, had insisted on her company. And because of it, he had been carrying the guilt of it around, the intention to make it _better_ , because he had fucked it up yet again. 

And she had enabled him, let him think it. Even through the drunken haze, he felt numb. She was still rambling, making excuses, trying to convince him that her actions had been for the better. He ignored her, thinking about how Carrie used to look at him, and that she never would again.

He reached for another drink.

…

Fumbling with his jeans, he stubbed a toe on the edge of the coffee table. _Fuck’s sakes._ And where was his phone? He nearly tripped over the garbage bag that the redhead had left by the counter - before he had practically kicked her out. What had been the point anymore? She had coughed up the truth, and then he suddenly felt no remorse, no guilt. He had used her too, after all. His phone appeared next to the coffee machine, and he grabbed it, turning to look for a shirt. It’s not like she would _see_ him, but he was sure she’d sense it - she’d somehow know that there were half of the liquor store's empties on his coffee table, five different kinds of molding takeout on five different tables. That the entire place stunk of booze and grease and sweat and sex. He could at least put on clean clothes.

She answered after four rings. “Please don’t say you pocket-dialed me,” Carrie said, voice dry.

His nervous energy practically propelled him off the couch. “We never had a _chance_.” He paced his trashed living room, all the words falling from him in pure relief. Because it hadn’t been his fault - not entirely. Sandy had been targeted by the ISI and hadn’t had a hope in hell. Quinn didn’t mention that he had still, actually, taken his eyes off him to keep Carrie in the car. But it didn’t seem as important anymore. 

“Quinn.” Her voice was heavier than he would’ve liked. 

“What?” 

“… this changes everything. It means I _really_ need you now.”

His stomach tightened. Fuck, those words in his ear - his heart skipped along, and his agreement was forming in the back of his throat when he remembered that he was _out_. Right? Wasn’t he out? He had one polygraph left, and then it was no more of this utter shit - He couldn’t fall for her again.

_Fuck._

He rolled his eyes up at his own spinelessness, trying to force himself to say it. Exhaling heavily, it somehow caught on his tongue. “No, I’m sorry, Carrie. I can’t do that.” It came out fast, before his mouth could change its mind halfway through. 

“No, I wouldn’t ask you if there was somebody else here I could count on-“ 

Quinn slowed his pace, staring at his laptop screen. Carrie was halfway across the world and she still had her hooks in him. He hadn’t been prepared to go back - it hadn’t even been a fucking _option_ \- but all she did was mention it, and he was starting to entertain the idea. He would see her again, protect her again - feel her hair, smell her skin - Jesus, she wasn’t propositioning him, for fuck’s sakes, but his entire body twitched with the prospect. 

“Don’t make me _beg_ ,” she said then. 

He stomped that vision down before it even had a chance.

“I’m sorry. I can’t do it.” 

But then she went and begged. “Please. _Please_.” Her voice was breathy against his cheek, and if it wasn’t for the light buzz of the phone line, it felt like she was right there, speaking in his ear. It wasn’t the first time, and it probably wouldn’t even be the last. He was a fucking goner. 

“Shit, Carrie.” He fell down onto the futon.

“I know,” she sighed. 

“Y’know, you’re the hardest person in the world to say _no_ to.” She was the only person in the world he couldn’t say no to. She just didn’t realize why. 

She took an amused inhale that sent all the blood in his head rushing down to pump in his chest. “Is that a yes?” 

He couldn’t even answer her. Of course it was a god damn yes. He had no choice now. 

“God, I _fucking love you_ , Quinn. You know that, don’t you?”

His mouth was so dry. 

_I fucking love you, Carrie._

They meant it differently. He knew _that_ , at least. He loved her in a way he wasn’t even sure was fucking possible, and she loved him for being her little lap dog that always came running when she called. He had often wondered what it would feel like, to hear her say those words, but he hadn’t expected the complete hollowness that came with it. He didn’t feel relief, or joy, or even love. He just felt devastated.

“Yeah.”


End file.
